The Search book 1
by Tenyakares
Summary: Starscream gets maltreated by Megatron but this time it doesn't stay without consequences. Warning: HUGE story :) Still ongoing. I'm editing it at the moment before publishing new chapters. Will be parallel published at AO3, later chapters will be explicit and only be published there. Starscream/Jazz
1. 1 - Separate

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby and kind of "breast-feeding", no bloaty belly mpreg though, I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. Still I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" (because rather human-like), but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**1 Separate**

He was on a simple patrol flight with Skywarp and Thundercracker when suddenly a stabbing pain shot through his very spark.  
Starscream gasped and his jets spluttered shortly, but after a moment the pain was gone again. With fans still humming with the aftermath, he waited to see if it returned. But everything seemed to be alright.  
Slowly he calmed down again. To have such fierce pain in his spark had been pretty disturbing! What strange malfunction had caused that?

He started a thorough system scan. It indicated nothing out of the ordinary. But only a breem after the test had concluded he was just fine the pain returned and made him cry out so fierce was it.

"What is it, Starscream?" asked Skywarp surprised.

The wingleader panted hard and gritted his dental bands. This time the pain needed a bit longer to subside.

"Don't know… painful appearances in my system…"

"Something singed?"

"No indication of it."

"Shall we return to headquarters and let Scrapper have a look at you?"

"No! No, it's ok, it's just occasionally appearing" Starscream assured and tried to concentrate on not letting anything show to the outside.

But that plan was severely smashed when after a short while a third stab of pain hit him, even harder than the ones before. He managed to make no sound, but he swayed on his path – what the master flyer normally never did.

"Starscream!" Skywarp indeed immediately called out. "That's not ok at all! Let's turn."

"No!" gnashed Starscream, unwilling to have himself examined by the Constructicon.

He managed to compose himself when the pain had lessened and fly straight again.

For a few kliks everything was fine and he begged his body to calm down – but it was no use. With rising intensity another pain attack came upon him, and this time it was so overwhelming that he screamed out in shock and lost height.

The two other jets immediately followed.  
"Keep up, keep up!" shouted Skywarp, very aware of the mountains coming dangerously close.

Fighting with himself, Starscream concentrated on the course, but the pain was literally ripping him apart. It felt as if his spark chamber was about to bust! It was really becoming frightening now!

"Hold on! Fly straight, Starscream!" Skywarp observed with rising concern how the jets of their leader spluttered and the speed they flew decreased significantly.

Starscream panted for air, his systems slowly overheating with stress while the pain was raging through his sparkchamber. Panic gathered in more peripheral circuits. What was going on here?

"Does it lessen?" asked Skywarp concerned.

"Yes, slowly" gasped Starscream.

"Alright, as soon as it's gone, land!" commanded the omega in surprising authority. And Starscream saw that it was the only reasonable thing to do. He had dangerously lost control over himself during the pain attack.

So they picked a halfway suitable landing place in a valley and quickly descended. Starscream preferred to land in jetmode – he didn't want to be surprised by another painwave while transforming and landing at once. He only transformed carefully when he was safely down and had little speed.  
It felt pretty stupid to stand there all careful when in fact nothing was going on. The pain was like blown away and his systems had a good status.

Skywarp had landed just in front of him and transformed.  
"What's going on, Starscream?" he wanted to know.

"If I knew that!" growled Starscream. "I have no idea."

"What hurts exactly? Perhaps it's just a minor thing and we can repair you."

Starscream bit his lip. Should he tell them that it was his spark that hurt? Somehow he was not so willing to do that… He was just about to say that his repair systems would surely take care of what ever it was and they should return to headquarters when suddenly the pain was back from one second to the next.  
It was so strong that his legs gave in and he toppled over, his hands flew up and grabbed his cockpit in a vain attempt to calm the raging spark behind it.  
His fans tuned up within a mircoklik and he involuntarily groaned with pain.

Skywarp, the most emotional of the three of them, jumped up to him and grabbed his shoulder. "Starscream! What is it? Your engine?"

The wingleader could only shake his head, not capable of speaking while the pain was wrenching his central systems into screaming overloading connections.

Skywarp looked up at Thundercracker and the eldest of them saw the panic in his optics. He had no idea what was going on and therefore also no brilliant plan how to handle the situation. Slowly he processed all possibilities he had, then he announced: "I will call up headquarters. Perhaps we can make Astrotrain come here and fetch him. It's definitely too dangerous to let him fly on his own."

Skywarp nodded frantically. "Hurry!" he said when his gaze returned to his wingleader, who was rocking himself in a desperate need of relief from his torment.

-

"Soundwave in"

"Hey Soundwave, it's TC. We have a problem here. Starscream has some strange malfunction that's causing him severe pain. He can not fly. We're out at 114.3 / 46.5. Can you send Astrotrain out here? There is something seriously wrong."

The communication officer thought for a moment. Then he told Thundercracker:  
"Astrotrain: on his way. Task to explain this to Megatron: Yours."

Thundercracker sighed. "Alright. TC out."

-

Starscream had collapsed to the floor when the pain had ceased, all fans humming wildly and his hands still clutched to his chest.

"Astrotrain will come" Thundercracker explained and sat down beside Skywarp, who knelt by Starscream.

"Good" said Skywarp, relieved.

The wingleader shut his optics. This was going to be embarrassing in some way, he knew it.

"So, what's hurting, Starscream?" Skywarp insisted to know again.

"Spark" Starscream sighed.

"What?!"

"It's my damn spark that feels as if it was about to explode!" Starscream shouted and an echo of the fear he felt was clearly audible in his voice.

"That… I have never heard of such a thing happening…" stammered Skywarp. "You are for sure mistaken, it will be some circuit near it…"

In that moment, Starscream cringed in a new assault, his body bending and writhing.  
"Oh Primus!" he gasped and his optics offlined with the pain.

"Definitely no plain circuit" TC muttered when he saw how his wingcommander curled in the loose sand floor, barely able to keep himself from screaming.  
They knew their commander was whiny when he was afraid , but they knew he was not whiny when he was in pain. He was experiencing far too much abuse by Megatron to be that.  
What he was now suffering was definitely worse than the normal battering and torture their leader brought upon him.

In a wave of affection Skywarp took Starscream's hand and held it tightly.  
"Hush! Hold on! We'll shortly be back to headquarters and find out what's going on. Relax! Be strong!"

The attacks grew not only stronger, but also longer Starscream found. Very promising. When the latest wave subsided, he felt totally exhausted already. He frantically thought about what could be the reason for this, but he found none. The last fight he had been engaged in was over ten earth days past and he only had received some scratches. They had long healed, and he found it very unlikely that his spark had caught some damage, let alone something that would only show up now.

He seldom felt happiness when he heard Astrotrain approach, but this time he was just glad that it meant he might get help – though his hopes were small that the Constructicons could find out what was going on.

Just when Astrotrain had landed, another wave hit Starscream and he honoured his name by crying out loud.  
He quickly turned halfway around and pressed his face into the sand to keep himself from screaming. His body shook and servos screeched with strain.

Determined, Thundercracker and Skywarp grabbed their commander and carried him into Astrotrain's hull.

Skywarp decided to stay with Starscream while TC ran back out and transformed to accompany the shuttle for the case they were attacked.

"Hurry" he suggested. And surprisingly enough, the grumpy tripplechanger complied without hesitation.

Starscream suffered two more attacks during the flight, and they were indeed increasing and the pauses between them shortened.  
It was maddening.

When they had reached headquarters, Thundercracker and Skywarp thanked Astrotrain and picked Starscream up to carry him into the repair bay.

Their commander accepted it, already totally drained.

They stumbled into Scrapper's lab. The Constructicon was working on some design at his computer terminal.

"Scrapper! We need your help here!" called Thundercracker. "Something is seriously wrong with Starscream. He suffers from pain in his spark. It's returning in waves and he says it feels as if his spark wanted to explode."

The Constructicon jumped up eagerly, hoping for an interesting case.  
He waved at the seekers to place their commander on his treating table and turned the lights on which were aimed at it.

Starscream blinked blinded. The first thing he saw was Scrapper appearing over him, face expressing curiosity and excitement.  
Wow he was looking forward to this…

"Are you sure it's your spark?" Scrapper asked.

He nodded weakly.

"Does it hurt now?"

"Not at the moment. But as things go I expect the pain to return at any moment."

Without asking for permission, Scrapper removed the cockpitglass to expose his controls. He took a status check and read it carefully. At the moment it showed nothing extraordinary, but when he looked at the files of the system usage rates, he found a row of regular peaks. The first had only scratched at the maximum, the second had reached it fully and the following three had totally used all of Starscream's processor power for a growing amount of time. Obviously his systems had indeed been flooded with intense feelings.

"Any idea where this could come from?"

"Not the slightest clue. I already…. ARRGGG!"

Starscream arched his back and his optics glowed up bright with the pain. His hands wanted to claw at his chest, but Scrapper quickly grabbed them and held them away since their force could have involuntarily ruined the fragile exposed controls.

"PRIMUS!" screamed Starscream and Scrapper observed in awe how his systems all reached full usage rate within a microklik. The hands whose wrists he held clawed helplessly in the air and the sleek but powerful body of the seeker soon began to shake.

Scrapper noticed that this attack again lasted a little longer than the one before. It now took nearly three kliks until it subsided abruptly and Starscream collapsed onto the treating table, gasping for air and hands shaking.

"Interesting" the Constructicon just said. He used the air commander's weakened state to pull his arms down and close the cuffs of the table around his lower arms.

"Hey... what…" Starscream protested, still dazed.

"You know, I need my hands free to examine you during your fits, that's understandable, is it not?"

Starscream's head fell down to the table. Great, just great. Waves of incredible pain were about to drive him mad and a crazy Constructicon just found him an interesting experiment, chained him to his torture rack and began to fumble around in his cockpit.

Thundercracker pulled at Skywarp's arm to make him aware that he wanted to leave. But Skywarp shook his head.  
"I'm not going to leave him alone here" he whispered.  
Thundercracker sighed.  
Skywarp always was very emotional and that even reached up to having compassion with their wingcommnader at times

Scrapper decided to remove the cockpit. He would have to examine the spark casing for lesions – there were no sensors telling something about that.  
"Retract your armour."

"Can't" whispered Starscream. He had no control over those half-conscious things at the moment.

Without hesitation the Constructicon began to remove his armour plates, baring his whole upper body. Normally you would never allow having your armour off, but Starscream hardly had a choice.

And when the next wave of pain hit him, he just didn't care… anything to make it stop!

Scrapper quickly pulled his hands away when Starscream's body convulsed in another pain attack. He had disassembled the left side of the armour so far and quickly put sounds to critical surfaces to see if there was in a way a short-circuit. But except for the immense onslaught of current due to the pain that washed through the seeker's system there was nothing apparently not normal.

This was most bizarre…

Suddenly the door of the lab opened and Megatron stomped in. "Why did you just… what's up here?"  
He gazed in wonder at the half bare, chained body of his air commander.

"I don't know yet" said Scrapper. "But something is seriously wrong with Starscream."

Megatron tilted his head and watched how the seeker fought with his pain, face a stricken mask of torture, fists opening and closing frantically and feet thrashing about. Troublesomely suppressed cries escaped as gurgled, suffocated noises.

Against his will, Megatron's fans tuned up a bit and the corners of his mouth curled in a wry smile.

How beautiful his second in command was when he was suffering…

But he didn't allow himself the lust of marvelling in the view.  
"So, what exactly happened?"

"He had first pangs of pain just out of nowhere when we were flying that patrol" Skywarp explained, agitated. "And it grew worse and worse. We had to land and ask Astrotrain to fetch him."

Slowly Starscream calmed down again. His optics were hazy with the strain and his lip had split with him biting it. A glittering drop of blood trailed down his cheek.

A shudder of fear ran through him when he noticed Megatron standing in the doorframe. He was weak, shackled and exposed… Good luck that Skywarp and Thundercracker were still there! He hoped they wouldn't leave. If he were alone with Scrapper and Megatron – he didn't know what they would do to him.

Scrapper just removed more parts of his armour and internal shielding, bit by bit baring his spark chamber.

It made Starscream afraid. It would only take one shot, perhaps only one determined grip to destroy him now…  
But in the next moment he didn't care any longer.  
The onslaught of the pain grew even worse, though every time he believed it couldn't be.  
"Primus…. Make… it… stop!" he gasped and his optics rolled back.  
"PRIMUUUS!" he screamed. "Oh mighty manufacturer… this… can't be real… it's impossible… help me! ARRRRRGG!"

Skywarp covered his optics, not able to take in more of the gruesome sight. What the heck was going on here?  
"Can't you do anything?" he asked Scrapper.

"I could deactivate him. But I guess that wouldn't help a bit. I probably can't make a diagnosis when his systems are not running. Except for, like, when the sparkcahmber has a fissure. But by now my guess is that can't be it – he'd be dead then by now."

"Not… helping…" gasped Starscream.

"Not exactly, I know."  
Scrapper bowed over him and inspected the metal container of his sparkchamber. When he touched it, Starscream jerked with shock.  
It was pretty warm. "I have to open it."

Only some mikrokliks after the last wave had subsided, the next already rolled over Starscream. It hit him so hard that he wished he would just pass out.  
"Oh Gods, whatever, just make it STOP!" he screamed, desperate.

Excited, Scrapper opened the container. You seldom saw the very spark of a transformer… at least not alive. What would Starscream's be like?  
He half expected it to be broken somehow, to find a bleeding in the container or something. But when he opened it carefully, there was just an optic-blazing light coming from it and he instinctively ducked to evade it.  
It illuminated the whole room and by far surpassed the lamps at the operation table.  
Starscream saw the light and thought: alright, that's it now, my spark is leaving me…  
But nothing happened.

After a very short pause, the pain assaulted him anew. He screamed out without any try to hold back. Nothing mattered to him anymore.  
"Scrapper… do SOMETHING! I can't stand it any longer! Oh Primus, kill me, kill meee!" he screamed, tears spilling from his optics.  
The pain was just overwhelming, it surpassed everything he had experienced so far – and that was not little.  
Even his rape seemed pale and harmless against this.  
He pulled so hard at his constraints that the armour of his arms began to bend and Scrapper rushed to fix his legs and upper arms, too, to still him.  
"I can not stand it anymore!" Starscream cried, "Please… make an end to it!"  
He felt as if the sparkchamber in him was burning, as if it was under an immense pressure and was about to burst at any moment.  
Just do, just do! He begged it.  
In his desperation he even turned to Megatron.  
"So easy! Just one well aimed shot and you can extinguish me forever!" he tried to lure him into killing him.  
But his leader just gave a sneer. "I prefer my aim able to defend itself."

More tears streamed down the dark, handsome face of the seeker.  
Even now, in his dearest need, Megatron let him down!  
And with his hands and legs bound he couldn't even do anything to end it himself! He had an intense desire to rip his spark out of his chest.

"Please, anyone!" he screamed out when another wave hit him. There were by now no real pauses between them anymore, it was just a tide between pain and incredible pain.  
"Thundercracker! Do me that favour, I beeeeg of you!"  
After that he lost himself in incoherent screaming.

Skywarp had unconsciously huddled into Thundercracker's arms. He had covered his mouth with his hand, gaping, mind blasted. When their wingleader had addressed Thundercracker, he turned to look into his optics. "No!" he mouthed. They couldn't, they couldn't just kill him! There had to be a way to help him!  
"What's it with his sparkchamber? Is it broken?" Skywarp demanded to know.

Scrapper put on an additional visor to be able to look at the strongly glowing sparkchamber.  
"It looks… beautiful…" he said before he could think.  
It was a perfect crystallic structure and glowed in a warm orange tone. He could see no flaw in it whatsoever.

Another shrill wail of Starscream shook the walls of the room.

"But… but there has to be something!" whined Skywarp.

To his desperation, the Constructicon shook his head. "I don't see anything I could repair."

"It can't be! It just can't be!" cried Starscream. "Oh Primus rip that god damn thing out of me!"

Skywarp turned to their leader. "Megatron! We have to call the Autobots! Perhaps Ratchet can help."

But as soon as he had said "Autobots" Megatron shook his head. "No way. I'm not crawling on my knees before them to save my dear second in command."

"I will!" suggested Skywarp in his pretty naïve manner.

"Silence! No Decepticon will disgrace himself that way!"

"KIIIILLLL MEEEE!" screamed Starscream, his vocal processor nearly snapping with overheat.  
This was absolutely unbearable! Why did his systems not shut down? No mech should suffer so much!

Slowly, Megatron raised his right arm and stepped forward.  
In a gesture that somehow warmed his spark Starscream turned his head towards him, holding his face right into the aim of his fusion canon.

"NOOO!" screamed Skywarp and jumped in between them. "You can't do that! There must be a way!"

"Leave, Skywarp" begged Starscream miserably. "Let him… arrrgg… shoot… please!"

"No! Wait! Give me a moment! Just a moment!"  
With that, Skywarp was gone.

He instantly showed up in the Nemesis' control room.  
As soon as he had materialised there, he shouted: "Soundwave, you have to come, immediately! Starscream has some strange disease at his spark, they are going to kill him, he asks to be killed in so much pain is he, please! Megatron won't allow me to call for Ratchet You're my last hope!"

Skywarp couldn't see that Soundwave's optics paled slightly behind his visor.  
With surprising speed he shot up from his seat and ran out.  
Skywarp followed him.  
It was not necessary to tell him where to go, for Starscream's screaming was audible through the whole Nemesis.

When they dashed into the room Megatron was standing right beside the table and his huge gun was aimed at the exposed spark.  
Starscream had thrown his head back and was panting and screaming through gritted dental bands, but there was no sign of defence in him. He was just waiting for his release.

"Step back!" Soundwave commanded.  
Megatron turned his head in surprise but didn't pull his hand back.  
To his astonishment, the normally calm and loyal officer grabbed his shoulders and pulled him off.  
Starscream's optics snapped online.  
"No!" he screamed. "Let me down, please just get over with it, O PRIMUS THE PAIN!"

Soundwave had taken the place beside the table and stretched out a hand. He very carefully touched the crystallic sparkchamber.  
It sent a jolt of energy through him.  
And that little of it was enough for him to know.  
"Ravage, eject!" he commanded and the cat jumped from his chest and immediately ran away in full speed, following his telepathic order.

"Starscream, calm down, your pain will be over soon" Soundwave said in unchanged monotone.

"NOW! OVER NOW!" Starscream demanded, voice so shrill that it nearly made audioreceptors shut down. "I can't take any more microklik of this, I should have long deactivated with the pain, why don't I? I want to be dead! NOW! Make it STOP!"

Surprisingly enough, Soundwave backhanded him hard.  
For a moment he was in shock and blissfully silent.

"Pain will end. Soon." Soundwave repeated. "Nobody is going to kill you. Period."

A spark-wrenching sob escaped Starscream before he resumed screaming his agony out.

Soundwave just stood there, waiting, seemingly unconcerned.

What nobody knew was that inside he boiled with rage and indignation.  
But that would have to be dealt with later.

"Soundwave…" Skywarp shouted to surpass Starscream's wailing. "What is happening?"

But the communication officer just ignored him.

Finally Ravage came back. She carried a container in her mouth and Soundwave quickly took it from her, placed it on the table beside Starscream's gaping chest and opened it.  
Shortly he held his hand out over the glowing spark and it threw a monstrous shadow at the ceiling.  
Then he skimmed through the contents of his container, which the others, who all looked at him expectantly, could not see.  
He obviously picked something pretty small from it and moved his hand with it into Starscream's chest.

The seeker was still screaming madly, face wet with tears, hands and feet thrashing uselessly in the chains.

Determined, Soundwave brought the little object in contact with the glowing sparkchamber.  
Within a microklik sudden silence engulfed the room. All of Starscream's systems shut down within only a moment.

Skywarp watched horrified how the body of their wingcommander went totally limp, the optics offlined and the fans spun out.  
And… the light of his spark was gone, the room dim in comparison.

Nobody dared to say something in the first klik.

Soundwave just stood there with his hand in Starscream's chest and didn't move.

"So… he is…" Scrapper began.

"But you said nobody would kill him!" wailed Skywarp and wanted to run for him, but Soundwave raised his other hand, demanding silence.

Thundercracker quickly grabbed Skywarp and held him back.

They waited.  
Several kliks.

"Soundwave, what are you doing?" Megatron finally asked. But the communication officer again only gave a wave with his hand to stay back and be quiet.

Suddenly there was a sharp hiss when all of Starscream's fans simultaneously jumped to life again. In a blaze the light of his spark returned, though a little dimmer than before.  
Soundwave pulled his hand out and put the thing he had used back into the container. He closed it and waved at Scrapper.  
"Close his sparkchamber, his armour and free him. Subject should be alright." With that he turned and rushed out, obviously in a hurry.

The others stood there like frozen for a moment until suddenly Starscream's optics onlined and he gasped sharply, coming back to consciousness.  
"What… where…" he said, but his vocal processor failed him pretty much.

Scrapper sighed. That was not exactly how he had expected this to turn out. Disappointed, he closed Starscream's sparkchamber, earning an indignant look of the seeker.  
Out of sheer spite the Constructicon did not release him yet.  
With all patience and overly cautious he put back all the armour parts.

Starscream slowly processed what had happened. He remembered the horrible agony, remembered that he had begged Megatron to shoot him, anything to stop it. What had happened then? He also remembered Soundwave examining him, but nothing more. Confused, he sought Skywarp's optics and was surprised to see his face wet with tears.  
"What's going on?" he croaked, but the youngest seeker only shrugged.

-

Soundwave dashed into his quarters, Ravage and Rumble, who he had ejected on the way, right behind him.  
He hurried to open the container while Rumble was fussing around with a machine on Soundwave's desk.  
They all shared a telepathic link and didn't need to talk to know what had to be done.  
Within some mikrokliks Rumble had started the machine.  
Soundwave had very carefully picked the little object out of the lined box in the container and enclosed it with his hand to see if it was glowing. It was. He felt a weak electromagnetic pulse.  
Quickly but cautiously he put it into the niche that obviously was designed for that purpose in the machine.  
It was flooded with fresh energon by a pump and warmed by heating wires.

That gives us some time. We have to hurry.  
Soundwave ejected all of his cassetticons and they went to work.

-

Starscream carefully rose from the table after Scrapper finally had the mercy to release him. Dumbfounded he looked at his lower arms. He had freaking bent them! The paintjob was gone and the metal all screwed.  
Tentatively he touched his cockpit, expecting the pain to erupt at any moment. But he was just feeling fine. Only a little… empty somehow.

He felt Megatron's gaze uncomfortably on him.  
"I need a flight" he said and marched out.

-

In such moments Soundwave was especially thankful for the telepathic link.  
They were working like one being. The six of them were in perfect union.  
Rumble was forging the bigger parts, Buzzsaw carved smaller ones, Laserbeak was picking out the screws and joints he needed, Ravage held the parts in place and he and Frenzy put them together.

Always having an optic for the status that the machine was giving about the tiny spark, they worked in full concentration.

-

Starscream indeed transformed and took off from the Nemesis' tower. He needed to clear his central processors and some solitude and flying were the exact conditions for that.

Skywarp tried to contact him via radio, but he ignored it.

As soon as the wind blew around his nosecone he felt much better already.  
So, what the heck had happened down there?

But no matter how long he considered all possibilities, he found no satisfying answer.  
The only thing he knew was that he somehow missed something.

-

It was done. The general layout was finished, the basic circuits placed, batteries equipped, a tiny energon pump constructed, coolant lines laid and memory chips installed.

Soundwave had to admit that he was a little excited. He had never before built a shell for a foreign sparkling!  
So far he had only built shells for the sparklings he had carried out himself and knew in a deeper way than anyone would ever know someone else. This time he could only have an external reading – and some reason of course.  
He had chosen the layout of a heavy flyer. Broad wings were protruding from the back of the small, lifeless robot. He was certain that was right. The strong, bright, burning sparkling was for sure a flyer. But he had no idea how exactly he would look.

His cassetticons were all gathered around the empty shell – as excited as he was himself.  
For a moment he considered calling Starscream to do this. But then he decided it was too early. He guessed Starscream was not aware that he had been pregnant and just gave birth to a new transformer life. It would be too overwhelming for sure. And Soundwave assumed there was a certain danger that he might instead of inserting it into the shell, smash the little spark out of revenge.

Personally Soundwave was sure that Starscream must have been raped.  
With his keen observation abilities he had for long known that Megatron not only hated the second in command, but also desired him. A dangerous mixture.  
Rage bubbled up in him, and he felt comforting thoughts directed at him from all his children. He tried to calm down. Now was not the time for anger. Now was time for joy. The joy of life.

He carefully picked the little spark out of the sustaining machine. It was still glowing. So exciting!

In his mind he gave it a wave of good will. No matter from what it was created and born, he cherished all new young robot life.  
Accompanied by good feelings of the communication officer and his five children, the spark was placed in the spark container in the tiny shell.  
Soundwave closed it quickly and retreated his instruments.  
Nothing happened.  
He felt how fear and disappointment gathered in Rumble and Frenzy – the youngest of his children. But he sent reassuring thoughts at them. It was alright, sometimes it took a while until the spark could take over control over dead matter.  
They had never seen it happen so they were especially impatient.  
But finally something happened. It was a very faint sound that first alerted Soundwave with his highly effective audio receivers.  
It just continued for a while, but then within an instant several other sounds joined it. The sound of a little engine starting, of fans taking their first turns, of hydraulics groaning and joints screeching.  
A bright light erupted from the tiny form that blinded them all for a moment, and they could only vaguely see how the body changed its contours – but only slightly.  
Already after a klik the spark had done its work to make himself a home after his liking – and bright white optics lit up.

They gazed in awe as the tiny robot testingly moved his legs and arms.  
"Amazing!" Frenzy exclaimed. "He's alive!"

"Welcome" Soundwave just said. He felt something was missing but then laughed inwardly about himself. Of course the telepathic link was missing – that was not his sparkling after all he had to remind himself.

The five cassetticons cheered and curiously came closer to greet the new sparkling.  
Soundwave had a closer look. He quite obviously was a heavy flyer – a c-class fighter as Soundwave recognised. They did not exist on earth, but he had sometimes seen them back in the old days on Cybertron.  
He was mainly light grey, only his forearms were black, his wings had some black lines and his lower legs were red. His helmet was light grey, but his face was a dark anthracite and spotted the graceful features of a seeker.  
Soundwave sighed. It did not need much creativity to see both Megatron and Starscream in him.


	2. 2 - Need

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby and kind of "breast-feeding", no bloaty belly mpreg though, I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. Still I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" (because rather human-like), but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**2 - Need**

Starscream only returned to base after four cycles of flying.  
He was damn hungry and first headed for the central meeting room to fetch himself some energon.  
He drank it on the run, for the three Coneheads were sitting in the meeting room and made stupid remarks about him screaming until the Nemesis collapsed and what Megatron had done to him this time.  
It hurt him.

For a moment he considered just going to his room and pretend nothing had happened. But then again Skywarp was still trying to contact him and he knew he couldn't evade him forever. So he made for Thundercracker's and Skywarp's flat.  
They were both there, sitting and drinking energon.  
Skywarp jumped up and it honoured Starscream to see that he was obviously glad to see him. How sweet.

"Starscream! How are you?"

"I'm just fine" the wing-commander said and sat down with him.  
"Now can you explain to me what was going on?"

"Unfortunately not really. You were out of your mind with the pain and Scrapper had no idea what was wrong. Megatron wouldn't call for Ratchet and so I fetched Soundwave to have a look at you. Do you remember anything of that?"

"Only that he examined my spark. But after that – nothing."

"Too bad. But not surprising. You were totally offline suddenly. He did something in your chest that we couldn't see. And he didn't bother to explain, either. Within an instant all your systems died down. It was quite scary!"

Starscream could clearly see that – Skywarp was still totally beside himself with agitation.

"He waited for a while. I guess it was about half a breem or so. Then you suddenly came back online. Soundwave just pulled his hand out of you and left. Ah yes, I forgot. He had Ravage fetch some container and he used something out of it in you. I don't know what it was. We tried to contact Soundwave, for he ran off in a hurry with that container, but he pretends he's deaf. Door is locked, radio is down, no answer from him at all. But I guess if you want answers, he is surely the only one who is able to give."

Starscream nodded and concern grew in him. There was something pretty creepy going on here…  
Absently he stroked his cockpit. His spark didn't hurt anymore. But it craved for something, reached out for something that it missed…

"I have to find out what that was" Starscream decided. It was clear that he wouldn't be able to find calm recharge as long as he hadn't spoken to Soundwave.  
"Thank you for your help, you two" he said. "I'll try if Soundwave will allow me in."

-

When he went to find the communication officer, he noticed that he had never been at his place up until now. Soundwave's door was still locked, so he radioed for him.  
For a good klik nothing happened, but then suddenly the door opened.

Tentatively Starscream stepped into a big room at the front of the sunken Nemesis.  
It had a huge window row looking out into the open sea. Apparently this was not the only room belonging to Soundwave, since it spotted no rechargeberth for example. And there was a door at the far end, leading to another room to the right.  
Soundwave just emerged from there and closed it behind himself.  
He didn't say a word and gestured for Starscream to sit on a comfy looking couch.  
It surprised the air commander that the room was so … beautiful. Somehow he hadn't expected that from Soundwave. And he had to admit he was a little envious. His own quarters were most humble. Well, that's what you got for always being a nuisance for the big boss Megatron.

Soundwave silently offered him energon and Starscream was astonished that he indeed wanted it though he had just drunken a good amount.

"So… I just was at Skywarp's..." Starscream began insecurely. "They told me what they have seen, but not what happened. It seems you are the only one who knows that."

The communication officer just nodded. As if that would help in any way.

"That's why I'm here. I would like to know, too. After all it was me who was going through that – and I would really like to understand what it was I was going through."

For a good while Soundwave said nothing and Starscream hoped for him that he was thinking – otherwise his patience would be thinning quite remarkably.

"Will you explain to me?" he finally demanded.

"Searching for a way" Soundwave informed him.

The creepy feeling Starscream had rose a good deal.  
"Just get over with it!" he said.

But Soundwave shook his head.  
"Complicated."

In his mind he weighed the possibilities. What was the best method to break the news to Starscream without bringing him up against his own child?  
To explain to him that he assumed he had been raped and it had caused his spark to split and form new life was surely not really a good way.  
Finally he settled for the direct approach. And hoped that seeing the lively little child would appeal to Starscream's good will.  
So he rose and made for the door.

Accepting the strange ways of the communication officer, Starscream sat back and waited.

A moment later Soundwave came back, and he carried something in his arms.  
In the first moment Starscream thought it was Frenzy, but when Soundwave sat down across from him he realised it was neither Frenzy nor Rumble, and also not Laserbeak or Ravage.  
It was a totally alien little robot.  
It had wings.  
And it looked at him with white optics - from a face of exactly his colour.

Starscream's processors froze when they tried to process this information.  
For a good klik he just sat there, staring blankly at the sparkling in Soundwave's arms.  
Then finally the electrons began to flow again and processed.  
It was two months past his rape. He had lived through great pain. Soundwave had put something into his chest, he had blacked out, and now here was a child that had his face, wings, and Megatron's light grey colour.  
He gasped for air and covered his optics.  
"You're not serious" he whispered. "It's all a bad dream. It can not be! IMPOSSIBLE!"

"Wrong assumption."

Starscream curled up on the couch and tried to not look at the disaster in Soundwave's arms.  
Again he claimed "It can not be. How should it? I mean… I'm male!"

"Still possible" explained Soundwave.

Cleaning fluid gathered in Starscream's optics when the realisation finally settled.  
He pressed his face into the cushions and shook his head in desperation.  
"No… it's not fair… why do I always have to suffer so much!"

"Child healthy. Strong little flyer" Soundwave carefully tried to convince Starscream to accept the little boy.

"I DON'T WANT IT!" Starscream cried out and turned to Soundwave abruptly, staring at the sparkling. "It's born out of pain and suffering, it was even sparked through pain and suffering! Extinguish it, Megatron shall never know and it will be forgotten."

"No option" was the answer in that annoying monotone. "Sparkling will grow."

"Who are you to decide that?" spat Starscream angrily.

"The one who will protect him with his own life" Soundwave informed him unceremoniously.

Starscream gaped at him.  
After a moment of thinking, he shut his mouth and tried to be reasonable.  
"So… I have been pregnant, yes?"

"Affirmative."

"And today the spark was ready to be taken out. But nobody did until you came, that's why it hurt so much."

"Correct."

"It's Megatron's son."

"My assumption. You must know."

"Yes it is" Starscream sneered impatiently. "You… you built that body?"

"Body built after probable assumption. Body is altered by the spark after insertion. Body is now as it is meant to be."

The tears now spilled freely from Starscream's optics as the tiny sparkling struggled and gave little noises. It tried to reach out for the red stripe around Soundwave's forearm and made an indignant face when it realised that you couldn't exactly grab it.

"Soundwave…" he croaked. "What now?"

"Accept" the communication officer advised.

The seeker gulped but couldn't prevent a hoarse sob escaping him.  
"He… but… I thought a spark can only be created out of a will to have one, or out of deep love and affection…"

"Unfortunately no" Soundwave explained patiently. "A high and special amount of current is necessary. Exact circumstances unknown. But it's a fact that you can be forced to spark against your own will."

Starscream cried bitterly, reminded of the horrors he had lived through.  
"That's so unfair! You suffer, and then you suffer even more! That can not be right!"

Soundwave shook his head slowly. "Not necessarily suffer more. That nobody knew what was going on with you: Bad fortune. Circumstances not necessarily that bad. But it doesn't matter now." He held the child up. "Sparkling is healthy."

In thick rivulets the tears streamed down Starscream's face when he looked at the sparkling. It was definitely sporting characteristics of both him an Megatron.  
And despite that fact he found him beautiful.  
A strange feeling formed in him.

"He will want to have him" he whispered. Tentatively he stretched out a hand and carefully touched the sparkling.  
"But I will not allow that."

Soundwave sighed inwardly. That was done!  
"Wish to hold him existent?"

An expression of shock spread on Starscream's face when it dawned on him that it would take years until the baby had grown to be responsible for itself.  
"O Primus! How shall this work here?"

"It does. Somehow."

"But… I'm not like you… you can carry your cassettes around securely tucked up in your chest. I would always have to leave it behind when I go out! Who will care for it? Besides… that I don't want to care for it all day!"

"Manageable" Soundwave assured. He wasn't looking forward to telling Starscream that he would have to feed the child for the next years…

"Yeah man, we will manage!" it suddenly sounded from the door in the corner and Rumble came running for them.

Starscream winced back. Oh great, the little nuisance had overheard everything! But in second thought he guessed he knew everything anyway over the telepathic link they were said to share.

The Cassetticon jumped onto the couch beside Soundwave and patted the little c-class-fighter affectionately. The baby reacted with struggling and made some pleased, gurgling sounds.

Despite the dire situation and though he still had tears in his optics, Starscream laughed. "Adopted a little brother?" he asked, hope developing in him.

"Yes!" confirmed Rumble. "We will not let anything happen to him!"

Starscream sighed. At least he was not left alone with this!  
Hesitant, he stretched out his arms.  
Immediately Soundwave held the child out at him.  
It was surprising how light and small it was. Starscream handled it carefully, as if it could break apart at any moment. Cautiously he placed it on his left arm and held it with the right, as Soundwave had done, trusting that the father of five children knew what he was doing.  
The tiny robot was totally lax, obviously not yet able to control his pistons thoroughly.  
Starscream lifted him up to inspect him closer.  
He would be a strong, huge c-class-fighter when adult, probably towering over Starscream and perhaps even a head bigger than Megatron.  
It was awesome how every part was there but incredibly tiny in comparison. Bright white optics looked at him with interest.  
He smiled, but couldn't help that it was a sad smile.  
"Hey little one. It seems I'm your daddy. Or mommy that is, somehow." He looked at Rumble and joked: "Do you call Soundwave your mommy?"

Rumble sneered. "No, in fact we call him boss. But I absolutely don't mind when you make your baby call you mommy."

"I can keep myself from that." Starscream stared at the tiny face in wonder. It was just beautiful. How could a mech born out of violence, hate and pain be so beautiful? He stretched out a finger and touched the little face. It was so tiny that he could cover it with two fingers. The baby shook his head and opened his mouth, trying to catch Starscream's finger with it.

In that moment Starscream received a radio transmission. It was Skywarp.  
He took it up. "Starscream in."

"Hey Starscream! What is it? Are you alright?"

The wing-commander sighed. "Yes, I'm halfway alright."

"So… what did Soundwave say?"

Looking down at the child, Starscream said. "You come over here and see for yourself."

"Alright."

It took Skywarp only some microkliks until he stood right in front of the door – naturally, he had warped there, so curious was he.

Soundwave allowed him in and he rushed over to Starscream, who he saw sitting crouched on a couch.  
"So what happened to…"  
Skywarp stopped dead in his movement when Starscream looked up with a sad smile and the seeker understood that it was a foreign baby he held in his arms.

"Primus!" he whispered and tentatively came nearer. He knelt down in front of his commander, optics fixed to the baby.  
"That… you… that is your baby?"

"Yepp."

"How?"

Starscream's face went sour. "Have a guess." He believed it would be futile to try to hide that he had been raped. That Megatron had interfaced with him was now evident. And he preferred the truth to the rumour of voluntarily being Megatron's whore.

"No idea?" said Skywarp.

Starscream shut is optics up for a moment. Unfortunately Skywarp wasn't exactly the brightest mind.  
"Well, who does he remind you of?"

Skywarp tilted his head to look at the child's face.

"You. He absolutely has your face. And…" Skywarp yelped and pressed his hand to his mouth when finally realisation dawned on him.  
With wet optics he looked up at Starscream.  
"Has he… ?"

"Yes, he raped me" Starscream confirmed and was surprised at how calm he sounded.

The tears spilled from Skywarp's optics. "Oh Primus! I'm so sorry, Starscream! We never knew… was that… like… one incident?"

"So far, yes."

"At least. That bastard!" he suddenly shouted, angrily. But then his face quickly softened again for the child gave a shocked wail about his outburst. "Oh, sorry, it's ok, I didn't mean you!" He stretched out his hands and carefully offered a finger. The child grabbed it tightly and he smiled at it and stroked the little fist with the other hand.

"I never knew you could…" suddenly, all amidst the sentence, Skywarp went totally stiff, processor capacities obviously overloaded for a moment. After some microkliks he sharply turned to Soundwave. "How is that possible? I mean, it's known that some males can separate their spark. You're the best example for that. But I always thought it was special about cassettes. How could that happen?"

"Rare but possible" Soundwave repeated. "Some cases of male pregnancy are known - often seekers. Not likely that it is possible with all seekers."

Starscream shut his optics against the disappointed look that appeared on Skywarp's face.

"Skywarp…" he began but didn't know what to say. How could you be disappointed about not having the prospect of suffering like Starscream just did?

The seeker caught it the wrong way.  
"Starscream. Don't despair. We won't let you down!" he promised, emotional.  
"Aw, I'm sorry and I hope it doesn't hurt you, but he is soooo sweeeeet!" Skywarp's face was ablaze with a bright smile. The child answered with mimicking his expression, pulling its tiny features askew with a wry, untrained grin.

Starscream sighed with acceptance. Alright then, at least he would have a good baby-sitter in Skywarp when he was so fond of the child.  
"Do you want to hold it?" he asked, beginning to scheme to get rid of the baby.

"Aw, may I?"

Starscream pushed the child into the waiting purple arms.  
Skywarp beamed. "It's so sweet! Hey, little one! I'm Skywarp. You don't need to be afraid. Everything is going to be just fine." He raised his head. "How did that work? I mean, what exactly happened?"

Starscream gave the look to Soundwave.

The cassette deck shrugged. "Spark can be split by applying a certain amount of energy and electrical current. At first not noticeable, new spark has to "ripen" for a while until it has developed all aspects of a mech's soul. When that process is completed, it separates from its father spark. You will definitely feel that."

Rolling his optics, Starscream nodded. "And you will be ready to die to make it stop."

"It's not necessarily that bad. The spark has to be offered a sparkchamber when it has separated. It is not entirely known what exactly happens, but as soon as the sparks separate, it seems the single sparkchamber becomes in a way too small for them both. And the child's spark demands do be picked out by … signals."

"Horrible pain."

"Yes. It's not so bad when that is done in time."

Skywarp nodded consentient.

As if you knew! Starscream thought. I bet as soon as you get out of here you will go to… no warp to Thundercracker and beg him to take you really hard. Weirdo.

"I guess the little one had been ready for at least a breem when I came" Soundwave continued and hidden behind his mask and visor he smiled about Skywarp lovingly cuddling the baby and Starscream watching him in horror. He believed he could look through both of them, even without using telepathic abilities…

"You should not believe that it is possible that a spark is born by rape" whispered Skywarp.

"Unfortunately, it is" confirmed Soundwave and like so often was happy about his broken vocaliser. It was so easy to hide your emotions like that. He was sure if his vocaliser would be working right, he couldn't have hidden his cold rage concerning that topic.

"Is Starscream's spark somehow special to be capable of that?" Skywarp asked. And finally it was too much for Starscream to bear.

"Skywarp! I tell you, you don't want that! It was just horrible! It was torture! I mean, you have seen me! How can you possibly want that for yourself?!"

But Skywarp just beamed up at them. "He is soooo wonderful!" he said and lifted the child up slightly, which had obviously slipped into peaceful recharge, pressed against his chest.

Starscream smacked his forehead.

"Lucky Thundercracker" sneered Rumble and exploded in laughter with an image in his mind of a Skywarp begging Thundercracker to be fucked hard.

But Starscream stayed serious. "What do we do with Megatron? I will in no way allow him to come near the child. But that will necessarily result in fighting and perhaps punishment for me."

Skywarp's face became grim. "I'm with you!" he said determinedly, though he normally evaded all disagreements with their leader.

"So am I!" called Rumble.

"We, too!" Frenzy screeched and came running from the door. The other Cassetticons followed.  
Soundwave only gave a tiny nod, but that at least didn't rule out that even he would stand in for Starscream.

It warmed Starscream's spark that he found so much support in them. He had feared to be mocked and despised for the humiliation he had suffered. But at least in this circle it seemed there was not the slightest hint of that.

"Did Megatron call for you?" Starscream asked Soundwave. To his surprise the communication officer nodded.

"Call: Pending."

"We will have to tell him eventually. How is the best way?"

Rumble stomped the floor. "He should know from the very beginning who he asks for a fight when he touches the little one! We all walk up to him!"

Skywarp nodded. "My word."

Even Soundwave nodded.

Though it was not Starscream's favourite way, he agreed. Somehow he feared to face Megatron directly. But it would be impossible to hide the child from him forever. And with the support of the others, he would manage.  
"Tomorrow" he decided.

-

Skywarp warped himself directly into their flat, giddy with excitement.  
"Thundercracker, imagine!" he called as soon as he had materialised there.

The older seeker jerked in shock. "Primus, Skywarp"

"Thundercracker!" The purple seeker flung himself into his arms. "Starscream has given birth to a child! He has a super sweet little baby!"

Dumbfounded, Thundercracker just stared at him.  
"Will you come voluntarily to Scrapper to have your circuits checked or will I have to force you?"

Laughing, Skywarp pressed a kiss to his lip. "Neither. It's true! His spark had split, and Soundwave pressed a sparkcrystal against his sparkchamber – with that the little one was freed and Soundwave and his cassettes quickly built a body for him. He's a treasure, Thundercracker, so small!" Skywarp showed a size with his hands. "And totally pretty!"

For a good while Thundercracker just listened to Skywarp's babbling and processed hard. Could it be? The story sounded so odd that he would not be surprised if Skywarp's logic-circuits proved to be singed. But in whole the story was consistent.  
"Whoa, whoa, slowly, Skywarp!" he finally interrupted the babbling of his lover. "You want to tell me Starscream has a son now?"

"Yes!"

"And where if I may ask did it come from?"

Within an instant Skywarp's beaming face grew serious. He leaned forwards and whispered into Thundercracker's audioreceptors.  
"He was raped. Megatron forced himself upon him. And that made him spark."

Thundercracker winced.  
That was the piece that had been missing to convince him.  
"Raped?"

"Yes!"

"But… can a child…"

"Yes, most obviously. Soundwave confirmed that, too. Poor Starscream! He didn't tell anybody. But now that I know I think I can tell when that happened. It was two months back, do you remember? We didn't find him for a whole day. Next day he showed up and was uncommonly silent. And had quite some armour parts with a fresh paintjob. Oh I pity him, the poor Screamer! Nobody should be sexually abused. I mean, that Megatron punishes him when he tries to overthrow him, alright, but rape – never. But the child, TC, the baby is soooo sweet! You have to see him tomorrow. Starscream's at Soundwave's place now and safe I guess. But we have to break the news to Megatron tomorrow. And I will stand right behind him, yes! Megatron shall never abuse him again! And especially he will keep his mitts off the child!"

"Skywarp! Are you absolutely certain that you want to be drawn into that?"

His lover pulled back and gazed in shock at him. "Of course! How can you ask that?"

"But... it's Megatron! He is our leader! He is the mightiest warrior of the universe! He can do what ever he likes with everyone of us!"

Skywarp pouted, disappointed that his strong lover wouldn't stand in for their side immediately.  
"I don't care" he sulked. "He won't do anything to us if it is half of the Decepticon army he would need to oppose. We will march up there tomorrow together, Starscream with the baby, Soundwave, all his Cassetticons and me! What should Megatron possibly do?"

Violate you when he finds you alone somewhere, thought Thundercracker but didn't have the spark to tell it to his lover. But he was afraid for him. Skywarp was damn attractive. Now that he knew that Megatron was capable of raping a subordinate, he feared he might also force himself upon the naïve Skywarp when he suddenly opposed him. He couldn't let that happen!

"Ok, hush, love. Calm down. We have to find a way how we can balance this new situation. It wouldn't help if we enrage Megatron."

"Well, in a way we have no choice. We will have to tell him that he has a child but that he will never be allowed to have any influence on that."

"That cannot be good."

"But it has to be!" claimed Skywarp indignant. "He will have to accept that, there is no other way. Period. And this time there is no superior power which can oppose us. We are too many. If he wants to fight us, he will have to fight Starscream, Soundwave, five Cassetticons and me!"

Thundercracker sighed and pressed the agitated Skywarp against his chest.  
He would have to think very hard about this.

-

Starscream had a surprisingly calm recharge. After all what had happened he had expected to not be able to find peace at all. But when he woke in the morning, he was rested and his processors clear.  
For a moment he tried to believe that everything had been a dream. But he didn't manage and quite expected to see the baby in the crate beside the couch. Where it exactly was when he turned to the side.  
The little robot had snuggled up against one padded wall of the makeshift bed, optics offline, fans humming in a high pitch due to their small size but calmly.  
Ravage was curled halfway around the crate to ensure that nobody would come for the child unnoticed. As if anybody could get past Soundwave's security systems undetected anyway.

Starscream rose and looked down.  
He felt much better now. Clear and steady somehow. Everything was settled. There was no escape, no option to turn around. The child was born and his rape would become public. Nothing would change a thing about that.  
He would have to live with whatever were the consequences.

Slowly he stretched out his arms. As soon as he had touched the child, though he thought it inaudible, Ravage opened her optics.  
Somehow Starscream felt caught. The cat didn't trust him. Justifiably so. Deeply hidden in circuits in the very back of his head he had to admit there still was the idea to just crush that little child out of existence. Erase the evidence of his torture.  
It gave him a slightly bad consciousness, but not exactly towards the child. More towards the expectations. Skywarp would never forgive him for that, and Soundwave probably neither.  
A deep sadness overcame him. His choices were few. Either he killed the child and brought the fury of Skywarp, the loathing of Soundwave and perhaps even deadly punishment from Megatron upon him. Or he let it live and would have to see the reminder of his rape every day. And have his own sparkling grow up under the constant danger of having Megatron influence him badly.  
With a sigh he picked the little robot out of his crest. It woke immediately. The bright white optics onlined and squawking noises came from the untrained vocal processors.  
"It's ok" Starscream tried to soothe it and laid it on his lap, framed by his arms to prevent it from falling off when it struggled.  
The child moved its short arms jerkily, trying in vain to grab for things which were much too far away.  
"My face is about three meters from yours. You can impossibly reach it with arms of a length of less than half a meter."

Starscream winced when he heard a sound behind him. But it was only the door to the recharge room opening. Soundwave came up to him, Rumble and Frenzy in tow.  
"How is he?" he asked, pointing at the child.

"I think alright, as far as I can tell."

"Shall we go?"

Starscream nodded unhappily.  
He was no longer so afraid of confronting Megatron. He expected his fate sealed. But it made him sad now. He would be the laughing stock of the whole Decepticon army from now on. More so than he had been before.  
He pressed the child against his cockpit and rose.  
Fatalistic he walked out.  
Somewhere in the gangways Skywarp and Thundercracker joined them. Skywarp beamed, Thundercracker seemed to be pretty confused and disbelieving when he saw his air commander approaching with a baby in his arm. But they both followed them when Starscream headed for the control room.  
Thankfully enough they didn't meet anybody but Reflector, who froze in place when he saw them coming.

Starscream didn't hesitate to enter the control room and found Megatron and Ramjet there, leaned over a monitor.  
Ramjet had heard them first, or Megatron just didn't care to turn.

When the jet processed that it was a baby in Starscream's arms, he also froze completely in all movement, processor obviously stuck.

"So, you are going to finally explain to me what was going on?" Megatron boomed and then turned around.  
He only winced for a second when he saw the baby, then his face turned into a wry grin.  
"And that would be?"

"That would be that I inform you of me having a sparkling" said Starscream firmly.

Megatron laughed meanly.  
"You? All alone?" he sneered.

"Yes" said Starscream. "I all alone. You are not allowed anywhere near it and I forbid you to talk to it."

"So? What gives you the right to do that?"

"I gained the right by being raped by you. You forced me into this against my will. That is a crime and injustice. That makes me the only one who can be responsible for the baby."

Ramjet awoke from his freeze.  
"Oh Primus, Dirge, Thrust, come to the control room right now, you have to see this!" he said, obviously having activated his radio.

Megatron stood with his arms crossed, unimpressed.  
"Since the child is half me, I demand influence."

"Not granted" sneered Starscream.

"You are not in charge here" Megatron growled menacingly.

But Starscream held his head up high and wouldn't be intimidated.  
"You may still be leader of the Decepticons. But what happens with the child I carried in my sparkchamber only I will decide. You annulled your right over this sparkling by using force to spark it in the first place."

To Starscream's surprise he realised that Megatron's optics were no longer focused on him, but on Soundwave standing right beside him.

That was when Dirge and Thrust scrambled in and goggled in open shock at the air commander and the child that just began making tiny unhappy noises.

Suddenly Megatron flashed a false smile.  
"Fine. You raise the child alone. I have more important things to tend to, anyway." With that Megatron turned back to his monitor.

Starscream was surprised about this turn of the events and didn't really trust them. But he also felt that for the moment it was enough.  
He turned on his heels sharply and marched out again.

His little committee followed and they gathered in the hall for a moment.  
Starscream gave the others a tired but thankful smile.  
"Thank you all. I'm very grateful for your support."

"You're welcome!" assured Skywarp. "Will you visit us with the little one?"

"Honestly, I have no idea what to do now."

"Come with me", said Soundwave. "There are still some things to sort out."

"Alright."

"You're welcome at our flat!" Skywarp assured and waved at him.

Starscream followed Soundwave and his cassettes back to the communication officer's room.

Soundwave locked the door behind them to avoid disturbances – or he always locked it, Starscream didn't know that.  
He gestured at him to sit.

The baby was fidgety and grizzled around unhappily and Starscream felt pretty helpless. He had no idea what it was missing!  
Insecurely he rocked it, but it only whined more and struggled.  
Oh Primus his life would be pure frustration in the next weeks, Starscream guessed.

Soundwave sat across from Starscream.  
It was dire time that the child got sustenance. And now was a better time to tell Starscream than before the confrontation with Megatron. To know that he would have to personally feed the child for the next years would have surely not boosted his courage.

Starscream looked up at him unhappily. "What's wrong with it?"

"Hungry."

Starscream nodded. "Alright, let's get some energon for him."

But Soundwave shook his head.  
"A newborn should not get normal sustenance. Artificially produced supplies nearly always contain stains and things not needed. We just burn those things in our engines or the digestion unit gets rid of them in other ways. The small body of a newborn is not capable of that. Not to say that it needs highly concentrated sustenance, especially dissolved metals, to grow."

Starscream made a face. "So what?"

"Since adult mechs can get along with dirty sustenance, the manufacturers decided to give them the possibility to feed their sparkling from their own body."

Starscream's jaw dropped.

"We have to examine your body for that feature."

The seeker closed his optic shutters for a moment. "You are not telling me that I have to feed the baby from now on?"

Since Soundwave was not exactly designed to give an emotional reaction, the monotone answer seemed cold and sparkles to Starscream.  
"You will."

"Oh Primus, I won't!"

"You will."

"I can't! I am the air commander, I will be away often and…"

"We will work that out somehow. Outlet of sustenance should be near digestion unit, search for access hatch there."

Starscream took a deep breath.  
"No way."

"Only way" Soundwave claimed.

"Slag!"

The child suddenly wailed loudly, upset about the bad atmosphere around it.

Starscream just joined him, screeching.

"Stop that!" Rumble suddenly pounded the floor, hard.  
"Silence!"

Starscream watched the small robot indignant. "What…"

"Fool! How should the child survive without you? To deny him sustenance would mean his death. What's so difficult about it? You just have to offer him some time to take up the fluid and eat some more for yourself. Period. Don't be a pussy about it, Soundwave has fed us all!"

Thunderstruck, Starscream gazed at Soundwave.  
"You did?"

"Affirmative."

"How?"

"Outlet is in my chest cavity. They drank from me in cassette mode."

Starscream hung his head, defeated.  
"So… where are those outlets?"

Soundwave stretched out a hand and touched the red chest armour under the intakes. It made Starscream wince back. "Hey! Don't touch me there!"

"Then do it yourself. Look for hatch."

In fact, Starscream wasn't really surprised about this. He had had strange sensations in his digestion unit in the last cycles. It had been very active though he hadn't eaten much, and he felt a kind of pressure behind exactly those armour panels.  
Resigned, he opened the hatch and allowed Soundwave to poke around in him there - he couldn't see for him himself due to the air intakes.

He grimaced uncomfortably while Soundwave tugged at tubes in his body and suddenly pulled one out. It was exactly the one that had caused the pressure sensation.  
The tube looked pretty inconspicuously like a vein and ended in a valve. Soundwave now stuck that into the mouth of the baby.  
It took it willingly and began sucking. Its optics flashed happily when the fluids reached it.

Tears began to spill over Starscream's cheeks.  
He felt raped. Again.  
The horrible baby ate him! It took up sustenance that was taken away from his body!

He felt a comforting hand on his arm.

"I don't want this" he whispered.

"Why not?" asked Soundwave.

"I don't want to give it from my very own body. I feel abused."

As always, Soundwave gave no emotional reaction. He just stared at the peacefully suckling baby.  
"I understand that. I always enjoyed feeding my children" he told him and Starscream couldn't help but feel a little honoured by the open confession of the normally totally reserved Soundwave. And also noticed that he had quit is normal short warspeech mode and was actually referring to himself as "I".  
"You shouldn't blame the child for what was done to you."

Starscream didn't look convinced. In fact he looked desperate and disgusted while the highly concentrated sustenance produced by his d.u. ran to his child through the tube.

"Give it time" Soundwave tried to encourage him. "To settle with the thought."

Swallowing, Starscream nodded in lack of a better answer.

-

It took a good breem until the child was sated. Despite still feeling threatened and raped by it practically eating him up, Starscream also felt strangely relieved.

Soundwave asked him if he was feeling safe enough to walk alone in the Nemesis and in his quarters. Starscream could affirm that. He didn't have the feeling that Megatron planned something against him at the moment. When he looked down at the child, who was now recharging peacefully, he also knew why.  
The child would need years to grow into a halfway usable soldier.  
Megatron would not do anything until then. It was much more comfortable for him to have Starscream dissolve himself by feeding it, just leave it alone and then, in some years, begin trying to corrupt it.  
In fact Starscream was more worried about Soundwave at the moment. The sharp gaze that Megatron had given him when they had stood there in the control room – it might have been a threat. A threat of pending punishment for him opposing Megatron. Perhaps the punishment would be to also force himself upon Soundwave?

But he told himself he was being paranoid.  
No matter what he always claimed in public – he knew that Megatron was far from really stupid. He would not cripple both his first officers by loading them with a sparkling.

So Starscream returned to his room. He wanted to be alone for a while. Well, as alone as he could be with the baby.  
Soundwave had given him the padded crate for the baby. He had also offered Starscream his Cassetticons to watch over him and the child when he slept, but he had refused that.  
Instead they had agreed on a special radio signal which Starscream could activate by a single thought that would immediately call Soundwave in an emergency – hopefully without Megatron noticing.  
That was enough to calm Starscream and he felt rather safe when he was alone in his room.  
He had placed the crate of the baby beside his desk.

For a good while Starscream just sat there and stared at the screen of his computer terminal.  
It took some time to get along with all what had happened.  
That he was stuck with a baby now. And he would have to feed it. They would have to organise that there was always someone loyal to him watching over the child when he was gone.  
Future looked bright.

-

It was loud in the hall that night. And the only topic was Starscream and his baby.  
Though the top guest didn't show himself, Reflector could at least show some pictures he had secretly taken of him and the little one.  
The Coneheads, Astrotrain, Blitzwing and the Constructicons were all gathered in unusual unity and joked about the chief nanny air commander.  
Laserbeak was observing them to see how the emotions were in the army. It didn't look too threatening. There was mockery and malicious joy, but no outright aggression at least.  
Megatron sat a bit aside and obviously enjoyed the uproar.

Soundwave had decided to pay Starscream a visit. He hadn't heard from him for the whole day and he guessed it would be better to see if he was alright.

He contacted him via radio to show him that it was him coming. That way Starscream expected him and let him in.

To Soundwave the seeker seemed drained. The cocky, loud attitude he normally had was like blown away. His optics were pale, the face frozen in an expression of suffering and resignation.

The baby was struggling in his crate and made humming noises.  
Soundwave took a look and immediately knew it was hungry again. It seemingly would take some time until Starscream was able to read it.

"Have you fed it?"

Starscream shook his head.

"Will you do it now?"

Nodding.

Starscream sat down on the berth and Soundwave placed the baby in his arms and helped him to get the feeding tube out.

"I tried" Starscream said finally. "But I didn't manage."

"You will learn" Soundwave assured him.

He gave the valve end into Starscream's hand and waited for him to offer it to the child.  
Starscream tentatively held it out to the child's face.  
The baby opened his mouth and tried to reach it, but Starscream held it too high – the servos of its neck were not strong enough to lift the heavy head up.

"Push it in" Soundwave said.

Only following orders, but without real feeling, Starscream dropped the teat. The child cupped it with its mouth as soon as it could reach it and hastily began to suckle.

"Is all what he drinks directly used to build up his body?" asked Starscream and Soundwave was glad that he at least showed a little interest.

"Yes. Up to the last drop."

"So he will grow quickly?"

"I guess so. Here." Soundwave handed Starscream a canister. "For yourself. You will have to take up a good deal of solid matter. Metal, polyurethane, everything."

"So it's a fact, he's eating me. When I don't eat more, but he drinks from me, my body dissolves itself to feed the baby?"

"Up to a certain degree only. Not until real damage occurs."

The seeker gave a disbelieving snort.  
"I feel it" he explained. "I feel how the fluids rush through the d.u. the "wrong" way around. How matter is ripped away from my body."

Soundwave only nodded. He knew that experience. Yet he had never hated it. But he guessed it was too much to ask of Starscream to enjoy feeding the sparkling. At least now.

Starscream opened the canister one-handed and began to drink it all down. He was thirsty and hungry. And he realised it would not help to refuse eating just out of pouting.

When they had sat there in silence, watching the baby suckle, suddenly the door buzzer sounded.  
By a radioed command of Starscream the door opened and revealed Skywarp and Thundercracker.  
The younger seeker immediately danced in and fell to his knees beside Starscream, optics wide.  
"You can feed him?"

"Can. Or have to."

"Awww!" Skywarp stretched out a finger and offered it to the baby to grab. It did and onlined its optics to see who it was. If Starscream was not mistaken, its optics lit up when it recognised Skywarp.

Thundercracker insecurely came in and closed the door behind him. It was pretty crowded now in the small room.

"Uhmm… Starscream…" Thundercracker said insecurely. "I wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened to you. It was very wrong of Megatron."

The air commander nodded tiredly. "I don't want pity."

"I know. But I wanted you to know on whose side I stand in this."

That lit up Starscream's face in a real smile. "Thank you."

For a while they sat and stood in silence while the child was satisfying its hunger.

"It's so sweet!" exclaimed Skywarp. "Aw man, I'm sorry Starscream, but I have to ask. Soundwave, how does it work?"

Starscream laughed out. "I knew it. I knew it from the first time your optics fell on the child that this would come sooner or later."

Skywarp pouted. "Why shouldn't it?"

"Because it's murderously painful? Because I nearly died giving birth to it? Because it's sucking me dry, practically eating me alive? Because I will be stuck with it for the next years, having to align all my days to its needs?"

"I want one, too!"

Starscream smacked his forehead and shook his head in resignation.  
"Whatever."

Skywarp beamed. "So, how?"

"I don't know how it works with others" Soundwave said. "I by now know what current it takes to make my own spark split. But that took a good row of tries and errors. This showed that it doesn't necessarily needs an external source of energy. Interfacing can produce enough of it, obviously. But that might be exceptional about Starscream. Since I suppose you tried that often enough and nothing happened."

Skywarp nodded, pouting, and behind him Thundercracker rolled his optics.  
It made Starscream laugh again. The whole situation was so weird.

"We will discuss that another time" Soundwave proposed.

Skywarp sulked. But nodded. At least Soundwave hadn't said it was impossible.

The baby just let the teat go again.  
"Sated now" Soundwave stated, wiped the valve clean and put the tube back into Starscream's body.

It shocked Thundercracker that it sent a jolt of arousal through his systems.  
It looked enticing to lick that off…  
Perhaps to have Skywarp pregnant was not such a bad idea after all…

-

Starscream groaned quietly.  
He was not in actual pain, but he felt miserable.

The baby was now five weeks old, and ever since its birth he had fed it at least twice a day.  
It still made him feel abused and hurt.  
Just for a test he hadn't eaten for three days once, but the sustenance fluid which the other Cons had lovingly dubbed "milk" in english to humiliate him, putting him in one place with the mammals of the earth, hadn't stopped flowing. His d.u. was producing more still, despite missing input, so he was sure it merrily dissolved his body just to feed his offspring.

Weakly he peered down at the boy. He didn't look back at him.  
Their interaction was pretty limited to the feeding, otherwise Starscream had seen to make other people care for the child. Skywarp readily did so, and also the cassettes were very helpful.

When he thought about his future though he saw it in darkest colours. He detested being so dependent, or having someone being so dependent on him.  
Megatron had in fact not taken him along to missions anymore, not wanting to endanger his son by possibly losing his feeding father. Until Starscream had pretty much gone mad with his grounding and had had a fit about it, resulting in Megatron beating him up and then at last letting him fly reconnaissance again.

His optics narrowed when he looked at the child. All his fault. Terrible little thing!

He had no idea how this should go on. When he thought about it and came to no conclusion, panic and desperation overcame him.  
He felt so terribly locked in - though "only" by invisible bounds of responsibility. And there was nothing worse you could do to a seeker than restrain him.  
So often had he thought about killing the sparkling to end his unbearable situation - but he knew quite a lot of people who would not forgive him for that. It was no really serious option anymore, now that Skywarp and utterly fallen in love with the baby and also Soundwave and his kids were clearly on the sparkling's side.  
His hands were bound.  
Again he groaned, but the pain in his spark would not fade.


	3. 3 - Caught

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby and kind of "breast-feeding", no bloaty belly mpreg though, I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" (because rather human-like), but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**3 - Caught**

"Arggh!"

Starscream lost a good deal of height before he could catch himself after the hit. But only some microkliks later the tip of his shot wing ripped off and he was sent tumbling again.  
Immediately he transformed – just in time, it were only some meters until he hit the floor.  
He had been so quick that he couldn't brake and tumbled several times until his momentum had worn off.  
For a moment he was dazed from the collision.  
And he had scarcely rebooted when he felt a heavy weight on his back.  
"Gotcha!" screeched Slingshot and Starscream felt the tip of a gun pressed into his neck.

For a moment he considered trying to jump up. But he knew too well that Slingshot wasn't the dumbest or slowest Aerialbot. Nor had he restraints to really shoot. He would wipe out his central processors before Starscream could turn enough to defend himself.  
Though he didn't like it, he had to admit he was defeated.  
Even more so when a second later two more Aerialbots landed beside him.

He felt them grabbing his arms and legs. Only to keep his honour, he struggled a bit, but he knew that he wouldn't escape. They took his guns away.  
Unfortunately enough, Skydive had a good amount of chains with him.  
Plus he knew what he was doing when he bound Starscream up. Only after a klik Starscream swore he couldn't move a finger anymore.

"The mighty Starscream!" Slingshot mocked. "Down with one well-aimed shot."

"While twenty missed though you were only ten meters behind be" countered Starscream.  
He received an impulsive kick into his side from the young Aerialbot.

"Stop that!" Skydive ordered. "Silverbolt, come in."

"Silverbolt in."

"We have Starscream tightly packed up. Come and get him."

"Good work."

Only a breem later Starscream heard the huge Concorde come down gently.  
He was lying face down and couldn't look past his shoulder-intakes, being practically blinded that way.

Several strong hands grabbed him and lifted him up. He was thrown into Silverbolt's cargo container. That was a pretty tight business, but even in that it was obvious that Skydive knew what he was doing – he had seemingly tied Starscream exactly that way that he would fit in. And be it scarcely.

The cargo bay was shut and shortly later Starscream felt how the Concorde took off.

He could only see the roof of the cargo bay now, but a handspan away from his olfactory sensor.  
Comfy.

He tried to think. What chances did he have?

At the moment – none. He saw no way that he could break the chains, and was absolutely unable to move.

So he would have to wait until they unchained him. Perhaps they would make a lapse in a way… but then there was his broken wing. He could only fly in robot-mode – and that meant he would be poorly slow in comparison to the Aerialbots. No way. He sighed. Got him alright.

-

The Aerialbots landed directly in front of the entrance to the Ark.  
Immediately Prime had them surrounded and several guns were aimed at Silverbolt's cargo bay when they opened it.  
But Skydive waved at them to calm down. "I have bound him, no need to be so jumpy."

Together with Slingshot he pulled the bound seeker out.

Starscream rolled his optics.  
Awesome scenario. Nearly all Autobots were standing in a circle around him, guns pointed, and he was bound with his feet against his aft and arms bent backwards.  
"Hello everybody! How was your day?" he screeched ironically.

He again was grabbed and nobody ever thought of taking the chains away. He was unceremoniously carried into the Ark and brought into the cellar – and the cells.

On the way there a creepy feeling began to crawl up Starscream's central wiring loom. He couldn't really tell why, normally he wasn't very concerned about being caught by the Autobots - they had a code of honour after all and would not abuse him, what was actually a nice change towards being around Megatron.  
But somehow exactly when that thought crossed his processors, his fear even rose a notch.

He was brought into a cell and second security officer Prowl observed personally how only there his bonds were loosened a bit but immediately chained to the wall.  
"Good catch, Aerials!" he praised. "What's it with the other?"

"Got lost. Probably warped away."

"Alright. We will come to you later, Starscream."

With that they left him under the watch of Brawn.

Starscream found himself strangely paralysed. Seekers were by nature claustrophobic and being in a small, enclosed room like this cell, plus pretty fiercely bound, didn't add to his comfort. Yet the panic that crawled into his spark did not come from that alone.  
Trying to steady and calm his breathing, Starscream wanted to push the fear away, believing it was a physical reaction to the confined space.  
But somewhere deep in his spark he felt something lurking that wanted to break free and seemed to just work on overwhelming him.  
Being totally on his own in the dark with no freedom of movement, nobody to talk to and nothing to occupy with were not exactly ideal circumstances to counter something like that...

-

It took several cycles until something happened. It actually relieved him, he had frantically tried to occupy himself to distract himself from the icy cold that was twirling on the bottom of his spark, trying to come up and swallow him.

He heard many heavy footsteps and shortly later the celldoor was darkened by the silhouettes of three Autobots. One was towering over them all. It was Optimus Prime.  
"Starscream."

"Prime."

"You were injured. I offer you to have Ratchet care for your wounds. If you take that offer, I expect from you to not try anything against him."

Starscream thought for a moment, then nodded. He was bleeding pretty profusely, and it would be of no use for him to grow weaker and weaker.

Prowl had drawn his gun, opened the cell door and stepped in first.  
Only when he had checked all of Starscream's chains, which were holding him sitting on the ground, and stood ready with his gun pointed right at Starscream's head, he allowed Ratchet in.  
The medic silently examined Starscream's ripped off wing.  
Starscream endured it when he cleaned the wound and patched the scratches up. To Starscream's disappointment he made no try to really repair the missing tip. He only stopped the bleeding by sealing the wound.  
"There. Anything else?"

"Two fingers broken in the fall" Starscream pointed at his right hand. The two outer fingers were dangling loosely from the first joint.  
Ratchet took a look at them.  
"I will need some special spare parts for that. I will come with them later."

Starscream nodded.

Only when Ratchet was outside, Prowl also backed out, gun always pointed at Starscream, and closed the cell doors.

"If I may ask – what do you plan to do with me?" Starscream called before they could leave.

Prime shook his head. "Nothing at the moment. We will have some talks with Megatron about that."

A wry smile screwed up Starscream's face while the gaping pit in his spark grew wider and more threatening.  
"Good luck with that."

-

Prime cut the connection and rubbed his flaceplate, frustrated.

Always the same reaction.

A twisted grin and shaking of a silver helmet.  
"Why would I want that rat back? Keep it in your cellar. I bet it's a better place for him than here."

Prime felt the optics of Jazz and Prowl on him.  
"Honestly" he said. "I have no idea what to do. I thought he might at least offer us something in return for Starscream. But it seems the odds are against us."

"So… what are we doing with Starscream?" Jazz asked.

"We can not just let him loose again!" Prowl claimed.  
That was also Prime's opinion. But that didn't solve the problem of what else they should do.  
Starscream had surely committed enough crimes to deserve punishment. But in what form?  
One thing was clear for Prime – he would not have him executed. The code of honour of the Autobots forbid the murder of a helpless enemy away from the battlefield.  
The only acceptable punishment would be imposition in some way. But to have Starscream work in the Ark would mean that at least one Autobot would always have to watch over him – ergo it was of no practical use at all.  
"I have to think some more about it" Prime said, going for the excuse he had always used in the last days.

-

After a while of being left alone Starscream fell back into his paralysis.  
All computing tasks he had had in store were soon done, all games he had on his systems played until he was bored. When he had counted all corns of sand of a size over 1 mm in four square meters of the rough concrete wall and indeed came to the same result as the three times before and his processors grew quiet after that realisation, the panic that had lurked in the base of his spark suddenly hit him like a sledgehammer. He gasped and cramped up with the shock that washed through his whole body.  
"Not good" he murmured, optics wide. Frantically he tried to make something up with which he could occupy his bustling processor rig to get it off of the panic, but he felt he was running away from a foe who was much more persistent than him and who would eventually catch up on him. He felt like falling in a vacuum, flailing helplessly but having no air to fly.  
Until he hit rock bottom and in a violent rush the memories finally broke the wall he had built around his spark.  
He began shuddering and breathing harshly, optics wide and glowing brightly, dental bands gnashing and found himself helplessly submitted to the onslaught.

-

Skywarp's head sank against the backrest of their couch.

Gently Thundercracker traced his jaw line.  
"It's too much" he stated. His hand ghosted down to the child in Skywarp's arm.

Skywarp grimaced.  
"Soundwave said that Megatron doesn't make the slightest move to get Screamer back."

Thundercracker nodded gravely. And he had nothing to answer.  
Their air commander was gone for three days now.  
Meanwhile Skywarp had done his best to feed both his' and Starscream's son.  
But it was wearing him out.

-

When Jazz came into the cellar to take up Smokescreen's shift in watching Starscream, he found that the seeker was sitting in the corner of the cell like always.  
He was leaned against the wall, his feet standing a bit apart, his arms leaned on his legs as far as the chains would allow, head hanging until his helmet nearly touched his arms.  
Deep in his chest, it broke Jazz spark.  
He couldn't tell that to anybody, but he pitied the Decepticon.  
Starscream was obviously miserable. To their mutual surprise he hadn't tried anything to break out. Perhaps because he knew it wouldn't help a bit, there was literally no chance for him to escape. Yet somehow Jazz had at least expected him to try. But he didn't. He just sat there, quietly, not even bickering with his guard.  
Where was the screechy, loud, rampaging Starscream he knew?

Smokescreen stretched his limbs.  
"Boring job" he said.  
Jazz just nodded and occupied Smokescreen's place. The young gunner left and it was still again in the dim cellar of the Ark.  
Starscream hadn't even bothered to look up for who was watching over him now.

For a good while Jazz just took in the sight.  
Everything about it screamed "I'm depressed". But that would normally so not fit together with the picture he had in mind of the second in command of the Decepticons.

"Starscream?" he finally said.

Taking a shuddering breath, Starscream gathered all his willpower to pull himself out of the black hole he felt himself in.  
The fierce, intense panic had flooded him mercilessly, pictures, feelings and pain soaring through him just like that day. He hadn't been able to do anything against it. Only after hours the massive panic subsided to baffled fear and finally to a pit deep desperation, in which he still wallowed.

A weakly hummed "Hmm?" was the only reaction.

"What's wrong with you?"

Strangely, to finally be talked at helped a bit against the lead heavy paralysis. It was so... normal to talk amidst the madness his mind was putting him through. He grabbed the straw and could actually make himself answer.  
"Hmm. Let me think… I have been sitting in an Autobot jail for four days now. Nothing happens, nobody tells me what is going to happen. I assume that you are trying to trade me for something but Megatron wouldn't give a damn for me."

"Yeah yeah, I mean I know that" Jazz told him. "But there is something else. You have acted that way ever since you are here. That's so not your style."

The seeker huffed. "So? And what would be my style then?"

"You should, like, rage around, offend us, try to get out or something."

Starscream laughed bitterly.  
"That Starscream you still know is long dead" he muttered so lowly that he thought Jazz could impossibly hear it. But he hadn't reckoned with the super sensitive audio receptors of the Autobot.

"Dead? Why?"

Shocked that he had been heard, Starscream just cried "Leave me alone!"

"But… I want to help you, Starscream. Is there anything we can do to make it better for you?"

"Let me go."

"Yeah, except that. You must understand that we cannot just let you loose again to return tomorrow to shoot one of us in a fight. Believe me, there are fierce discussions going on about what to do with you. It's not so easy. But can I do something to make it easier on you here?"

Get Ratchet to empty my milk reserve tanks, he thought. His digestion unit was still producing the special sustenance his child needed, but since it wasn't used it began to build up pressure in the tubes and tanks. It was highly uncomfortable. But he preferred that entirely unsaid.

"Like, perhaps… perhaps I can manage to allow you a walk outside or something" the Autobot suggested. "You must for sure suffer from being down here when you are used to move in the air normally."

That was true, Starscream had to admit. But somehow he didn't want to be helped at all. He just wanted to rust down here until he was gone. No pity, no mercy. Everything solved.

To Jazz' frustration Starscream didn't react to his proposal.  
"Would that be good?"

"Leave me alone."

Jazz sighed. Starscream must be really depressed. Jazz knew from personal experience how that felt. In a certain state of depression, you tended to inflict even more pressure onto yourself, kind of to justify that you were sad. It was quite obvious to him that Starscream was in exactly that state.

Jazz decided to talk to Prime about the walk outside and radioed him silently.

"Prime!"

"Hey Jazz. What is it?"

"We need to do something about Starscream. He is depressive. I think we should at least get him out of the cellar for a bit. See, he is a flyer, man! Used to having the air carry him, free as nobody of us earthbound bots. Really, he looks like a caged in bird to me down here. Can I go outside with him, please?"

"Not alone, Jazz, definitely not alone. I will have to talk to Prowl about that."

"Aww, Optimus, Prowl won't allow! I mean, he is the security officer. Of course it is most secure to leave Starscream down here. But man, you should really come here and have a look. He is personified misery. It would be downright brutal to leave him like this. But Prowl won't understand that, Prime, with his logic processors all over him."

-  
Optimus Prime, up in the control room, had to grin when he imagined Prowl with his logic processors all over him. He was sure he would be covered from helmet to feet with them were they on the outside.  
"I will try my best" Prime promised and ended the connection.  
There was a difficult task ahead of him!

He found Prowl in the data bank central, uploading information.

It was already a bad start that he had to disturb him with that.

"Prowl?"

The officer shot up from his seat, personified discipline. "Prime?"

"I want to loosen the conditions of Starscream's arrest a bit. We can not leave him in the cellar forever."

"What are you suggesting, Prime?"

"To allow him a little walk outside would be a start."

"Prime! Impossible! That would practically be an invitation for escape!"

"I'm sure you will be able to make sure that he can not get away and still savour a bit of fresh air and freedom."

"But Prime! What for?"

"He's a flyer, Prowl! To lock him in down there is mental torture. I don't want to make myself responsible for that."

Prime saw clearly that Prowl didn't get it but he saluted nonetheless, just to follow his leader's order.

-

Jazz received a message and was surprised to hear Prime tell him that they would soon come to fetch them.

"Starscream?"

"By Primus, leave me alone for a while, will you?"

Jazz laughed out. "I dared to talk to you once, now I haven't for two breems. Is that so bad? I have good news, anyway! We will go out for a little fresh air."

"I don't need to be walked like a stupid squishy dog."

"Aw come on, don't be a pest. You surely will enjoy a little air and the sight of the sky, won't you?"

"No."

Jazz sighed. Grave case of depression already.  
"Well, ok, no matter, then I will force you to go outside. I don't care if you like it or not."

That was when Prowl and Prime came down the stairs. The security officer had heard the last sentence and made a face. "What? He doesn't even want to go out and we bother to do all this?"

Jazz rose and just brightly said. "Yes, we do."

Prowl gave his typical "I give up" face when his logic processors failed to follow the more emotional systems of other bots.  
With weapon drawn he opened the cell and went in.  
When Starscream didn't move a bit, he waved at Jazz to point his weapon at him while he was installing strong cuffs on their prisoner.

When that was done he went down to his knees and grabbed Starscream's lower leg.  
Jazz saw that Prowl had a strange device with him. It looked like a screw clamp with one very long handle.  
The security officer pulled Starscream's leg out until it was fully stretched, making it impossible for him to kick out, and inserted the long handle into his turbine.  
The seeker's head jerked up in shock when the iron bar found its way through the multiple fans of his turbine. It was clear that he was in pain or at least great discomfort due to the treatment.  
In an instinct to help, Jazz wanted to jump forth, but was grabbed by Prime and held back.

When he had securely screwed the clamp to the armour of Starscream's lower leg, keeping the iron bar firmly in place within the turbine, Prowl grabbed his other foot.

"Prowl!" Jazz called. "Is that really necessary?"

"Can you fly, Jazz?"

Defeated, Jazz hung his shoulders. That was not what he had intended! He had wanted to help Starscream and lighten his mood, and now the seeker was crippled even more, having his turbines stuck additionally to the damaged wing.

Though it obviously hurt him, Starscream also endured the procedure on the other side without any attempt to defend himself.

Starscream felt mutilated. Now his ability to fly was completely taken from him.  
It felt more like a prison than any walls ever could.

Resigned, he just complied when Prowl loosened his chains and attached his cuffs to a chain around his waist.  
Squishy dog on a leash even.  
"Do you want to put a choke collar around my neck perhaps?" Starscream proposed ironically.

Prowl absolutely didn't get it. Irony wasn't something logic processors could handle really well.  
"I think this is sufficient."

Behind him, Jazz smacked his forehead.

Prowl pulled Starscream up to his feet and marched out, dragging the seeker along.

Starscream walked awkwardly on the screw clamps, which forced him to tilt his feet to the outside a little.

To his surprise he found that neither Prime nor Jazz looked happy about his treatment.  
They followed silently.

Prowl led them out of the Ark, then he turned to Jazz to take over the lead.

The second in command of the Autobots sighed.  
"Can you give that chain over to me and stay back a little? I believe it's not exactly relaxing to walk around having you with drawn gun right on your heel."

"Imp…" Prowl began,

"Of course" Prime interfered.

The security officer looked indignant at his commander. But Prime only made an impatient move for him to give the chain to Jazz.

"I will not be held responsible for this!" Prowl explained when he unlocked the chain from around his waist and put it around Jazz'.

"No" assured Prime and gave Jazz a little time to get some distance between them, only then he followed with Prowl.

"I'm sorry" Jazz muttered. "This is not exactly what I had in mind."

Starscream just snorted.  
But he had to admit – it was wonderful to see the sky again. It was just dawn, and though Starscream would never admit it, he loved the sunsets on earth. Every day it was different, and every day it was wonderful.  
And to move his pistons more than only shift a little in the narrow cell felt extraordinarily well.

He peeked sidewards at Jazz and was surprised to see how expressive that visored face was. Disappointment and guilt was written all over it now, and somehow Starscream felt a bit of pity for the Autobot. He had meant good.  
"It's ok, Jazz. You were right, it feels good to see the sky again."

Immediately the light grey face with the strong jaw and cheekframe lit up in a beaming smile. "Oh, that's good. I already thought I had brought even more unhappiness over you. At least you enjoy it a little. Despite this." Jazz lifted the chain up.

"Well, who would blame Prowl for it. That's his job" said Starscream so loud that the two bots walking behind them could hear it. "To arrest people and chain them up."

To his surprise, Jazz indeed giggled beside him, finding his remark funny.

"I absolutely tried to convince Ratchet to exchange some of his logic circuits with emotional ones during a maintenance" Jazz whispered. "But the Ratchman wouldn't do it."

"Pity."

-

Megatron stared at the screen, watching the blurry image.  
The tiny camera that belonged to Soundwave's surveillance arsenal had caught up the little party taking a walk outside.  
For a short moment he thought about sending a squad to free Starscream and bring him back. But it was immediately quenched again. Should the nuisance rot in the Autobots' cellar!

Ever since the incident a few months back their relationship, if you could call it that, had suffered a strange tilt.  
From the outside, not much was visible Megatron guessed. But on the inside, it just didn't feel right anymore. It had driven him increasingly irritable and he had in fact experienced a strange relief when Starscream had been captured and was securely out of reach.  
Otherwise he wouldn't have known for how long his self control had held...

Skywarp fought with his decision for a while. But finally he set into motion.  
He was incredibly tired and his d.u. could not keep up with building enough sustenance for two children.

Thundercracker would probably be horribly mad with him, but he couldn't help it.  
He brought Polarstorm to Soundwave, telling him that he wanted some time with Starscream's son alone.  
Good luck that Soundwave knew when to mind his own business, he never questioned the poor excuse.

Skywarp put the little one into his cockpit and raised the docking tower.  
When the gate opened, he transformed and flew out without allowance or notice.  
Not only Thundercracker would be mad…

When he was returned to his cell after an hour of walking and sitting outside, Starscream had to admit he felt better. He insisted on having the screw clamps removed. Jazz demanded a different binding that wouldn't keep Starscream fixed sitting against the wall and after a greater discussion Prowl put one long chain around Starscream's knee and the other end to the wall and bound his hands via a chain that was pulled through behind his back, thus allowing him to move them but not bring them together in his front to do something harmful.  
For the first time since he was imprisoned at the Autobots' Starscream took up energon. So far he had had no appetite at all, though he was horribly hungry.

-

"Hell. Who?!" asked Blaster, dumbfounded.

"Skywarp, yeah exactly, Skywarp the black and purple seeker of the Decepticons."

"Watcha want?"

"I need to talk to Starscream."

"Good joke."

"No! Seriously! Please, get me Prime!"

"I will! For sure I will!"  
The communication officer of the Autobots got Optimus Prime on a line, though the leader had just resigned from shift.  
"Sorry, Prime, but this is urgent. Please come to the control room."  
He heard an incoherent grumble before the connection was shut down.

A klik later Prime came with heavy footsteps.  
"What is it?"

"There is someone who wants to talk to you. It's your line, decepticreep."

"Thank you so much, Blaster" said Skywarp ironically. "Prime, this is Skywarp."

"I hear you. What is your matter?"

"I need to see Starscream."

"And how do you imagine that should work?"

"I'm on my way to you. I ask for allowance to land. Please, let me see Starscream. I really only have to see him for a while, then I will leave again. And since you are Autobots, I trust you won't take advantage of me when I come peacefully."

"Skywarp… we can not just simply let you get in here…"

"I will give you my weapons! Really, I don't want harm! It is an important matter for which I have to see Starscream personally."

"Would you… explain that more precisely? I would definitely need to know what exactly you have to do here. You will understand that."

Skywarp sighed. "Do you promise me that when I come in peace and no harm will come to you, you will let me see him?"

Prime considered that for a moment. But then he agreed. "I will."

"Can we… talk in private? Like, get Blaster out of this, and everyone else if possible?"

Blaster chuckled. "What the hell is up, Skywarp, I always thought you were into Thundercracker, what can be so horribly private between you and Starscream?"

"That is it not!" Skywarp snapped. "Now get lost from the line!"

Prime nodded at Blaster. "Grant him a private line. And really private, Blaster."

"Ok ok." Blaster handed Prime a cable over which he could communicate with Skywarp alone and could also with much difficulty bring himself to stop his constant recording, that would enable him to listen to the conversation later on.

"I have you alone now, Skywarp."

"Prime…. Aww, it's really tricky…" Skywarp thought hard. But then he decided to opt for the truth. They would see the baby anyway when they really let him through to Starscream. He was sure they would be observed and not left alone.  
"Prime… Starscream has a little son. He needs to be nourished. Badly. I have him with me here and need to bring him to Starscream to feed him."

"…"

"Yeah I know what you think, but at the moment I don't care about it. Will you let me through?"

"…"

"Prime?"

"You're serious about this?"

"I damn well am serious, Primus, yes! You will see it for yourself when you just let me land!"

"At 243.46 /453.3 there is a place behind a hill here by the Ark. I will await you there with at least two other Autobots. Land at least one mile away from us, otherwise we will see the need to shoot, assuming you want to trick us somehow. Clear?"

"Clear."

"See you out there."

Prime handed the cable back to Blaster.

"What the heck is up?" Blaster asked. But Prime shook his head.

"Later. Perhaps." He turned on his heel and marched out, meanwhile radioing Prowl and Silverbolt to meet him at the entrance of the Ark.

It was dark by now outside.

"What is it?" asked the tactician.

"Accompany me. We will meet Skywarp out there."

"What?!"

"Skywarp needs to see Starscream in a personal matter. We will see if the story he told me is true."

"It must be a trick and we are heading right into it, Prime, you are not seriously believing anything a Decepticon says?" raged Prowl.

"In this case, Prowl, I must say that I do. The story he told me is so weird that it would be too stupid for a trick."

"But… it's Skywarp! He can warp right out of our hands if he wants to!"

"What good should it be? Now be so good and shut up. My mind is made up."

They waited at the coordinates Prime had given the seeker and only a klik after they had positioned themselves there, weapons ready, they saw an aircraft coming in.  
Skywarp landed as Prime had ordered a good mile away from them and transformed.  
They aimed their headlights at him to be able to see him better.

He raised his hands. "No trick, damn believe me!" he called.

"Put your weapons down, Skywarp!" Optimus Prime ordered. "We will fetch them and give them back to you later."

Indeed, the seeker immediately disassembled his weapons and placed them on the ground.

"Alright. Now come up here."

Without fear, Skywarp came towards them, though they were all pointing their weapons at him.

When he was but a hundred meters away, Prime said:  
"Would you show me for what you are here?"

Skywarp shook his head. "I don't want everybody to know in the Ark."

"Prowl will know, no matter what, Skywarp. Silverbolt, would you turn away for a moment please?"

The reasonable Aerialbot immediately complied.

So now only Prowl and Prime were staring at Skywarp in wonder when he opened his cockpit and picked a tiny robot out.  
Even from the distance they could see that it was struggling and squawking, convincing them that it could hardly be a mockup.

Prowl's mouth fell open.  
"What… what…. Does that mean?"

Prime nodded gravely. "That means that I was right. The story sounded too weird to be a trick. Alright. I allow you to see Starscream, Skywarp."

"And you grant me and … this… free leave afterwards?"

"I grant you and… that… free leave. Prime's promise. As long as you don't cause any harm or try tricks to free Starscream."

"Agreed." Skywarp put the child back into his cockpit.

"Aaaalright. Silverbolt, you can look again. Would you please fetch Skywarp's weapons and store them securely? Otherwise you are free to leave. Skywarp, with us."

The seeker fearlessly stepped up between them and they escorted him to the Ark.

Pretty quickly there was a huge crowd around them when the people caught up that there was a Decepticon walking freely between them.  
But when they reached the stairs to the cellar of the Ark, Prime ordered them all off without an explanation.  
Alone again, they reached the corridor down there.

"Don't be startled, Jazz" Optimus warned, "We are coming and… are not alone. But everything is alright."

Jazz jumped up from his seat. "What the…?"

"Trust us, everything is just alright." They stepped up to the cell.  
"Starscream… you have visitors."

The seeker looked up and froze when he recognised Skywarp.  
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.

Skywarp waved at him to calm down while Prowl was unlocking the cell door.  
When Skywarp had slipped in, he locked it again and drew his weapon, pointing it at Starscream.

Confused, Jazz looked questioningly at Prime.  
"You will see" mouthed the Autobot leader.

Skywarp knelt down beside Starscream and opened his cockpit.  
"I'm sorry, I had to bring him. I can not… you know… he's very hungry… I tried my best, but it's impossible."

Jazz jerked when he heard an untrained vocal processor give a small wail. It sounded like a child…

"But now we are both stuck here!" said Starscream angrily.

"No. They are Autobots, Starscream. The unfair thing is that we can always trust them, but they can not trust us. They will let us go again."

Starscream rolled his optics. "I hope you are right."  
He lifted the whining child out of Skywarp's cockpit, back turned towards the Autobots at the cell door. Troublesomely he fumbled for the feeding tube with his bound hands. "Help me here" he ganshed and Skywarp quickly pulled the tube out and gave it to the child.  
Starscream grimaced - the tub was close to bursting full and the silly thing happened to have sensory linkup to his body.

The baby had whined unhappily, scared by the strange circumstances, but he also was terribly hungry and when Skywarp stuck the valve into his mouth he succkled greedily.

"Primus!" Starscream sighed. He gave Skywarp a look. "Who would have believed that I one day would be thankful for his hunger? I thought I would burst. It was horrible."

Skywarp grinned meekly. What would he do for that, the two children had sucked him empty to the last drop in the last days!

Jazz poked Prime nervously. "What is it?"

"A baby" said Prime. "Starscream's baby."

The second in command stared disbelievingly. "Where does it come from?"

"No idea, but Skywarp brought it in to have Starscream feed it."

Curious, Jazz stood on his toetips and tried to catch a glance over the wall of seeker wings. No way.

"What are we doing now?" Skywarp asked Starscream.

"No idea. How long can he hold on without sustenance?"

"Starscream! You can not let him starve" Skywarp exclaimed offended.

"Well, what should we do? How long can you stay?"

"Ouf. Not long. I left without telling anyone. Only Soundwave might suspect. It might be nobody notices. Thundercracker will be back from patrol in now three hours. Assumed that I need some reserve in the case he comes earlier, I at latest have to leave in two hours."

"Hm. That at least might be something. When he is done drinking, we pump off as much milk from me as possible and you take it with you. Perhaps you will get along for a while with it. Since I'm pretty… overloaded."

Not having any better idea, Skywarp nodded unhappily.

Starscream turned his head to look over his shoulder at the Autobots.  
"We could use Ratchet here, Prime. I guess you heard us. Skywarp has to take nourishment for my son with him."

The obviously pretty confused Autobot leader nodded and radioed for Ratchet to come down.

The medic was there within a minute. "What is it?" he asked.

Prime pointed into the cell. "I would need you to … milk Starscream and pack what he can give in a way that Skywarp can take it with him."

"Uhm… I shall do what?" Ratchet asked disbelieving.

Finally Starscream was fed up with it and turned towards the Autobots, showing them the baby suckling at tube. All the Autobot's faces went blank with astonishment for a moment.  
"You shall damn pump as much milk out of me as you can and give it Skywarp. He needs to bottle feed the baby for the next days if somehow possible."

"That is your child?"

"Yeah, that's my child."

"Primus."

"We have two hours until Skywarp has to head back. During that time we have to try to collect as much milk as possible. Got it?"

"Yes, yes. I will go fetch a … pump or something…"

Ratchet marched away.

"Don't tell anyone!" Prime called after him.

"Thank you" muttered Starscream.

The little one just let go of the tube.  
"What, already sated? Very good. Then I was really carrying much, there is still a lot in the milk chamber in the d.u."

They waited for Ratchet to come back.  
The medic showed up after a breem, having searched for suitable tools.

Prowl ordered Skywarp out of the cell and walked in together with Ratchet to secure the medic while he worked.

"I have no idea if this works" Ratchet said. "It's an external emergency fuel pump in reality."

"Have you cleaned it thoroughly? The milk may not be stained, Soundwave told me. Children's digestion units can't handle impure fluids. That's why they can't drink energon and oil and everything directly."

"I faintly remember. It's been thousands of years since I have last seen a babybot. But yes, I have thoroughly cleaned it. I tried to find some suitable adapter, hope this works."  
The medic handed Starscream one end of a tube of the pump.

"We will have to try." Starscream tried to get it onto the valve.

"You can control the pressure of the pump. I will start lowly."  
Ratchet started the pump. Nothing happened.  
Slowly he increased the force of the machine until the valve suddenly opened. It made Starscream gasp.

Slowly, pink, creamy milk filled the transparent tube.  
Ratchet held an aluminium bottle ready at the output tube of the pump.

"Shall I increase the pressure? It seems to work rather slowly."

Starscream nodded.  
The pump tuned up a deal.  
"Ow."

"Sorry. Too much?"

"No, it's alright" gnashed Starscream. "Primus, the little one can really do that better than any pump!" Starscream said into Skywarp's direction.

They all watched as the nourishing fluids rushed through the tubes and filled one bottle after the other.  
Only after two breems the flood slowly ceased.

Starscream disconnected the funnel and brought it over to the other side. Two more bottles to go, then he felt there was nothing more.  
"There. How much is that, Ratchet?"

"Every bottle holds five litres. We have seven and a half filled, so it's about 40 litres."

"That will buy you some time, Skywarp, I guess."

The black and purple seeker nodded. "Primus, I hadn't thought it would be that much! But well, he had a huge appetite your little one."

"You didn't want to believe it."

"I take it all back, really. He drinks twice as much..."

"Silence."

"… What?"

"Twice as much as you thought it might be. It's hard to produce so much extra-clean energon artificially."

Skywarp didn't get it. He made a questioning face. Starscream rolled his optics. Now was a bad moment for his stupidity to strike. The only thing he wanted was that the Autobots wouldn't know that Skywarp had a child, too. But the other seeker didn't get it quite obviously.

"Well, I'll see how far I can get with those" Skywarp said, confused, pointing at the bottles. "Perhaps I can recover a bit with… what is it?"

Starscream had closed his optics in central processor pain. Sometimes he wondered how one single being could be so stupid.

By now all Autobots were staring at Skywarp and to Starscream it was clear that they had enough hints to puzzle together.

"I wanted to keep you from explaining too many details to the Autobots. They don't need to know everything" Starscream said, resigned.

"Oh… I see."

"Get lost, Skywarp. I think what I produce of milk in the next hour won't be enough to justify you staying so long. It's probably better you are not caught. Be careful with Megatron."

The younger seeker nodded. Prowl let Ratchet out of the room and Skywarp back in. Leaning back, Skywarp stored the bottles in his cockpit. They didn't all fit in while still leaving room for the baby, so he had to put some in other cargo containers of his alt mode. "Couldn't carry more, anyway" he said.

Starscream handed him the child and it hurt Skywarp deep in his spark to see that he didn't even kiss it good-bye.  
He absolutely adored his own son and also loved Starscream's little one, but the air commander had vast difficulties with accepting it. Poor baby!  
Trying to make up for the coldness of his father Skywarp gave the baby a kiss before he put the sleepy sparkling into his cockpit and closed it.  
He patted Starscream on the arm. "Good luck."

The air commander gave a snort. "You too. And keep away from Megs!"

"I will."

Skywarp rose and walked out.

To Starscream's surprise the Autobots obviously indeed intended to just let him go.  
Prowl just checked Starscream's chains and locked the cell door, then they all left with Skywarp giving him a good-bye-wave.  
The only one who stayed behind was Jazz, and he was staring with open mouth at him.

"What?" Starscream snapped angrily while he fought to put the tube back into its hatch with his bound hands.

"That was amazing!" the Autobot said.  
"I never knew you had a son."

"I didn't either" Starscream grumbled. "Up until three months ago."

"And… Skywarp has one, too?"

A sneering laugh escaped Starscream. "Can hardly deny it anymore with all those hints he gave about nursing my baby in my absence, can I?"

"Well… no. How old is he?"

"Skywarps son? Only two weeks now."

"Wow."

Starscream turned his back to Jazz, showing that he didn't wish to talk.  
The Autobot thankfully shut up.

Jazz' mind was reeling. A baby! A transformer baby! How the heck had the Decepticons managed that? And they had thought their race was on the best way to extinction! But now it seemed the Decepticons had found a way to multiply!  
It should be a fact making him concerned that the enemy they barely had a draw with concerning fighting strength could recreate, but his amazement and happiness about the fact that transformer babies were possible at all totally quenched that thought. It was awesome! He so wished to know more about that - but Starscream showed clearly that he didn't want to talk now. And he respected that. After all, the seeker couldn't run away.

When he had calmed down somewhat, Starscream lay down on the rubber matte on the floor. He felt exhausted, but much better now that his milk ducts were empty. Finally no pain anymore! And he knew that Skywarp had returned to headquarters and both their children were alright. At least.

-

Skywarp was still about sixty kilometres away from headquarters when he was radioed. It was Thundercracker.  
"Skywarp! What are you doing out here?"

The younger seeker chided himself. How stupid! Thundercracker was still on patrol and he could have sneaked past him, but he just forgot! But on the other hand – he was sure he would tell Thundercracker anyway. He didn't want lies and excuses between them.  
"I'm flying home. I will explain to you later, Thundercracker. Just end your patrol and I will be waiting at our quarters and then explain."

"I feel it, you are up to mischief. You are going to or have done something silly."

"Depends. You will see."

"Alright. Till later then."

Soundwave raised the docking tower for Skywarp and let him in. The seeker headed right for the control room since Soundwave told him he was alone there.

Indeed he found Soundwave at the controls and Ravage recharging, curled around Strom's crib.  
"Hello! Hey, little one!" He immediately knelt down by his baby and carefully lifted it up to his chest. "Baby, baby, how are you faring?"

The tiny seeker gave a gleeful squeak when his father fondled him.

"How is Starscream?" Soundwave asked and Skywarp sighed. Of course the communication officer exactly knew what he had been doing.

"Not so super well. He is locked in in the cellar of the Ark. I mean, they don't treat him badly. But I guess he is bored out of his mind, being stuck there for days. And he was suffering from not being able to nurse. Said he was never so thankful for the little one being so hungry when I gave it to him."  
Skywarp opened his cockpit and smiled when he saw that the little c-class-fighter was comfortably snuggled up in it and recharging. Careful not to wake him, he picked him out and placed him in the cradle instead of Storm.  
"We have pumped Starscream empty. I have brought nearly 40 litres of milk with me."

Skywarp pulled out his feeding tube and stuck the tip into Polar Storm's mouth. The tiny seekerlet began to suckle happily. During that Skywarp began to unload his precious cargo. In the beginning he had always enjoyed feeding his son, but when he had to sate both him and Starscream's baby, it had quickly worn him out. Not only could he not eat as much as was going into the milk, also the production of it obviously cost the body a lot of strength and he had felt terribly weakened.

"Assumption: all Autobots know now?" Soundwave inquired.

"Hm, no. Prime, Prowl and Ratchet know. And Jazz, he was guarding Starscream. But Prime asked Ratchet to not tell anyone. So it may be they grant Starscream some privacy."

"Hope: Perhaps it helps them in their decision."

"Yeah, that I hope, too."

Skywarp was still playing with his baby when Thundercracker came in.  
The blue seeker was obviously distressed, but relaxed when he saw Skywarp and both children healthy.  
He knelt down behind Skywarp and rested his chin on his shoulder.  
"So what do you want to confess?"

"I was at the Autobots'."

Thundercracker pulled back in shock. "What?!"

"Yes, I had to bring the little one to Starscream. I knew I couldn't feed him again tonight. Something had to be done. So I just flew there, asked them for permission to come in and gave Starscream his son to nurse.  
And everything worked out well, as you see, don't make such a face. After all… they are Autobots. Honourable, predictable Autobots. I trusted they would let me go again and they did.  
They were all pretty surprised about the baby though. Here, I have brought a good deal of milk for the little one!"

Thundercracker rubbed his forehead. "Alright, alright. Oh dear, am I happy that you are back here" he pressed a kiss on Skywarp's helmet.

"I'm sorry I went out without telling you. But I knew you would try to forbid me. Yet I had to go."

Comfortingly, Thundercracker patted Skywarp's upper arms. "Ok, love. You're right, I would have been too mistrustful to let you go. But it seems you estimated the situation just right."

"Yes, and now we have some time to recover and think. And perhaps the Autobots also think and let Starscream go, now that they know that he has a baby to nurse here."

-

"Impossible! The fact that he has a baby doesn't change anything about his crimes against us!" Prowl claimed.

"But the child starves!" Jazz said accusingly.

"It doesn't. Putting all the hints together Skywarp has unintentionally given us I must assume that Skywarp can also in some way feed that child. It will be just fine."

"But he is not made to feed two children!"

"Two?"

"Oh come on, Prowlie, what did you mean by "in some way"? Didn't your logic processors come up with the only single logical explanation for that? Skywarp has a son of his own, that's why he is partially able to also feed Starscream's baby. But only in greatest emergency."

"Is that my problem that they rut around in the Nemesis so madly that they all suddenly become pregnant and have children?" Prowl stated.

"In a way, yes, for little sparklings need their parents, and the parent happens to sit in your jail while the sparkling is hungry in the Nemesis."

"Starscream could have thought about that before he participated in that attack…"

"You are being illogical, Prowl, for once! How could he? When Megatron ordered him to go and fight, he had to, no matter if the child was back at home and he at the risk of being killed or caught."

"Then for Primus grace get the child here but don't ask me to let the second-most-wanted criminal of the galaxy just loose out of pity."

"You can not put a child in your jail, you sparkless…"

Suddenly the big hand of Optimus Prime collided with a loud thud with the table of the conference room. "Enough!" he boomed. "This discussion is not about logic and emotional circuits. We have to find a solution for this problem, not sort out personal fights.  
First, we are not in a desperate hurry. The child will not starve to death. Second, this is far too important to be messed up with personal quarrels.  
Let's collect the facts."

"We have done that three times now" Ratchet sighed. "I'm tired of this and I have other matters to deal with. If you allow, I will retreat. I have only been drawn into this because I know what's going on, not because I would have any responsibility here."

With a sigh, Prime nodded, and the medic left him with his tactician and the second in command.

-

Starscream had sat right below the air vent. The small opening let some very faint light and a little amount of fresh air in. His legs were crossed and his hands lay on his thighs. He would have liked to fold them, but the bonds would not allow him.  
Ratchet had just repaired his fingers and they still felt a little numb.  
The medic hadn't spoken a word with him. Instead of Prowl, Bluestreak and Red Alert had been standing at the cell door. The young gunner had talked for nearly the whole time when he had been sitting guard by Starscream's cell. It was maddening. And not even Starscream constantly ignoring him and not saying one word had stopped him. Finally Starscream had felt forced to shut his audio receptors down to stop the noise.  
Bluestreak obviously hadn't even noticed. For only when Starscream saw by the shadows cast at the wall that something was moving he reactivated his audio receivers. And just heard Bluestreak babble about not knowing why Starscream didn't react.  
What a bright boy.

Ratchet had just come in, grabbed his hand and repaired the two broken fingers. When they were functioning again, the grumpy medic left without even a look into Starscream's optics.

Overcautious as always, Red Alert checked his chains twice and the cell door thrice before he left Starscream again.  
As soon as Red Alert was out of sight, Bluestreak began babbling again.  
"He's so funny. Does it really make you more secure when you check a lock thrice when you have seen with the first time that it was intact? Red Alert is always like that, you wouldn't…"  
Starscream turned back to the wall and switched his audios off.  
Bliss.

-

Starscream came online with a start and felt suffocated. He looked around, panicked. Something was amiss!  
Only after some microkliks he realised that he was deaf. Stupid him. He switched his audios back on. Everything was still except for his own body's noises and a tiny, repeating sound of something moving.  
Starscream felt terribly lost and alone. It was so dark, so cold and so lonely down here. And he realised that his first look was down to the floor - where he sought a crib that was not there. Stupid, already it had become a habit to look for the baby!

He gazed over his shoulder.

Primus be blessed, Bluestreak was gone. Instead Jazz was sitting there again, legs crossed. His foot was twitching regularly. He obviously listened to some music.

Starscream rose and stretched his limbs as far as the chains allowed.

It caught Jazz' attention and he looked up.  
"Hey, Starscream man! Have you fallen asleep against the wall?"

"Seems so. Bluestreak was so … talkative it made me a little sleepy."

Jazz chuckled.

"Anything new for me?" Starscream asked. Checking his internal clock, he found he had been recharging for nearly six hours.

Unfortunately, Jazz shook his head, obviously unhappy.  
"No decision yet. Are you hungry, Starscream?" He held out a small energon cube.

Starscream was hungry. Indeed he was very hungry. So he stepped up to the cell door and Jazz gave him the cube through the bars.  
Starscream stared at it.  
"Very funny."

"Uh?"

"How the hell should I get that up to my mouth when my hands are bound like this? You seem to forget that I have wings under which the chain is stuck."

Jazz smacked his forehead. "Oh damn, sorry Starscream! Haven't thought of it. Well… I don't have the key code for the chains. Only Prowl and Red Alert have them. Prowl is off-duty and Red … I would rather not ask Red. Would you mind when I hold the cube for you?"

Starscream snorted. "Let me think… I have the choice between starving and having you hold it… hmm…"

Jazz sighed and took the cube Starscream held out at him.  
With some punches into the control panel of the cell the electric current on the bars was gone and that way Starscream could step up closer and Jazz could twist his hand through the bars without fear of being jabbed.

He offered Starscream the cube and the seeker closed his lips around the lower corner of it and drank it empty in a few gulps.

"More?"

"Yes."

Jazz gave him another one. It was done in the same speed.

"Thirsty" said Starscream.

"There is a tap in the cell in right… there…"

"Right there…"

"Yeah, yeah, I see, right there where you can't reach it with your bound hands. Dear Primus, I'm so sorry Starscream, you should have told us earlier!"

"I thought it was intention."

"Never. We never intentionally wanted to let you thirst and starve."

Jazz radioed Red Alert. "Red, I have to open the cell door. Starscream can't reach the water tap with his chained hands. No, you don't need to send reinforcements, damn no… Red! Calm down! I only need to open that tap… don't be ridiculous…. He isn't even armed… no I didn't forget that…. Red! I have no short circuit in my trust programming, shut the hell up and punch in the second code now, open that cell and don't you dare to sound the alarm for it!"

Starscream couldn't help but laugh out loud about the half of the dialogue he heard.

Jazz angrily shut the connection and immediately occupied himself with the control panel.  
The door opened.  
Starscream thought just for a moment if he had a chance to overwhelm his guard, but saw it was minimal. It wasn't worth the try. Jazz was a skilful bot and well-trained in hand-to-hand combat. He was armed and not chained – there was no way for Starscream to get past him.  
Not to say through the whole Ark with his broken wing.

Jazz opened the tap and clear, cool water came running out of it. That corner of the cell was lowest and there was a drain in the ground. Waving at Starscream to serve himself, Jazz stepped back with his weapon loosely in hand.

The seeker approached the tap and held his face under the flow, catching the water with his mouth. He drank greedily. Primus, he hadn't really noticed how thirsty he had been!

Content, Jazz watched how his prisoner sated his thirst.  
He couldn't deny that Starscream looked awesome how he stood there, head thrown back, long neck arched, optics half closed in bliss.  
He drank a whole lot and Jazz had a very guilty conscience. He must have been horribly thirsty.

When Starscream finally stepped back, Jazz closed the tap and retreated backwards from the cell.  
Starscream watched sadly how he closed the cell door.  
He so wanted to be out and gone. To be free again, to see something else than the few square meters of cell here, to feel the air rush through his turbines and see the stars and the sunlight again.

The face of the Autobot expressed guilt. As if he knew what Starscream was thinking.  
"I'm sorry" he indeed did say. "I hope they soon come to a conclusion."

Starscream nodded. "So do I."  
He slumped back down to the floor, gloomy.  
Primus make that this would be over soon.


	4. 4 - Parting

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby, but I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" (because rather human-like), but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**For readers of the first parts: I am editing the story and turned the "breast-feeding" into a feeding by tube, so don't be surprised when that suddenly changed from here on ;) **

**4 - Parting**

Skywarp tried not to let anything show to the outside, but soon he dozed off again and his head suddenly jerked up when his chin touched his chest.

Ever watchful, Thundercracker took in the sight of his lover and it tore his spark.  
Skywarp was just feeding Polar Storm - again. After he had just fed Starscream's son only a cycle ago.

The bottled milk was all used up, had barely sated the little c-class fighter for two days. Now they were back to sharing what Skywarp had for them. And no matter how hard he tried, it was not enough. Every few cycles one of the sparklings would again whine because of hunger.

They had tried everything to support Skywarp's body, had bought extra rations and had completely spared him otherwise, but it didn't really help against the terrible fatigue he was fighting with.

Thundercracker had insisted on having Mixmaster examine his blood a few cycles ago, and the Decepticon chemist had said he could exchange his blood with water and wouldn't feel a difference for it was so empty of vital components. They had to be quite inventive to make Mixmaster prepare special drinks for Skywarp to replace what he lost with nursing the children. Just yesterday Thundercracker had dived around in a corral reef near the Nemesis for hours to find some special crustaceans Mixmaster wanted to have for a new cement mixture - what probably only was harassment.

"Skywarp" Thundercracker said.

Hazy, tired optics were turned at him.

"How do you think the Autobots would treat Starscream and the baby when I brought him there to stay?"

Tears gathered in the optics so unusually lacking vitality. Skywarp's groaned and his lip trembled.  
"I don't want to give him away" he said. "Who knows for how long they will keep them?"

"You can not feed them both. Period. What do you say, will they keep him in the cell?"

Slowly, reluctantly, because he knew he was sealing the case, Skywarp shook his head.  
"No. They always try to be honourable. They would never harm the baby. If they really accept it there, they will surely improve Starscream's prison conditions. Or they will only give it to him to nurse. Thundercracker, it's too dangerous. They might steal him. Starscream cares so little for him. It only needs one Autobot to fall in love with the baby and he will be gone to their faction. I can even imagine that Starscream would intentionally leave him there when he finds a way to escape. Or is set free."

"Well, they need him to nurse him. The two of them can not be separated. And to be honest… would it be so bad when someone there adopted him?"

Skywarp looked at his lover in shock. "Thundercracker! How can you say that!"

"I can say it because I mean it. It's the only place where he is safe from Megatron's influence."

"But… I would never see him again! No, no! We can not give him away."

"Don't be so egoistic, Skywarp. I know you love him, but seriously, think about it – if there really was an Autobot who would care for him, I'm sure he would be treated very well and would grow up peacefully. Admit it – for him it would not be the worst idea. Not to mention that it is not settled, it might as well be that Starscream takes him back here when he is set free.  
For my taste, it would both be acceptable outcomes.  
When we keep him here, you will some day collapse with weakness and the children will always have too little to eat. That's no option, is it?"

Resigned, Skywarp shook his head.  
Storm was whimpering unhappily for there was no more milk coming from his father when he was still not sated.

Unhappy, Skywarp bedded his son into his crib and picked Starscream's sparkling up. He rocked him gently and pressed a kiss to his helmet. "I love you, little one."

He cuddled with him for quite a while. The sparkling was only half awake, but woke when Skywarp finally gave him over to Thundercracker. That was when he felt the dark mood and looked around, searching.  
He saw Skywarp crying and obviously felt the good-bye hovering in the air and also began to cry miserably, making it even worse for Skywarp.

"I can't, I can't!" Skywarp whined and wanted to grab the baby, but Thundercracker turned away from him, denying him.

"Step back, love. It will not be the last you see of him, for sure. See, most probably he and Screamer will be back in some weeks perhaps, when the Autobots get tired of guarding Starscream."

Skywarp sobbed hoarsely and bit his fist. It ripped his spark into pieces to see how Thundercracker loaded the wailing sparkling, who was desperately waving his short arms into his direction in a gesture of wanting to come back to him, into his cockpit and closed it.  
Little robot hands smacked the glass from the inside, demanding to be let out again. But Thundercracker steeled his spark against it, tried to give Skywarp an encouraging smile and turned to leave.  
Behind him, Skywarp broke out into suffocated, desperate sobbing and he heard how he obviously went down to his knees, crying hard.

But nothing would change his decision now.

-

Starscream had curled up in a corner of the cell and pressed his face against the wall. He didn't want to see, he didn't want to hear, he didn't want to feel.  
He didn't want to see the cell interior anymore, he didn't want to hear the silence and the diminished echo in the cell tract, he didn't want to feel the crushing puniness of the room.  
And he didn't want his guard to see his tear streaked face.  
It was a mystery to himself. In earlier time he had never been so mentally fragile. Megatron had sometimes imprisoned him for several days in an absolutely dark cell so small that he only could crouch in it and he had only reacted with defiance and anger. But now he was close to snapping. Time passed, kliks, breems, hours, and nothing happened. He was alone, he didn't want to talk to the single one mech present, his guard, and his milk reservoir tank was bursting full and hurt like hell.  
Yet he didn't want to ask for Ratchet to pump him empty again. It was just too embarrassing, and he knew that scientific curiosity would get the better of Ratchet when he had such a substance in his reach – he would surely make experiments and analyses with his milk, and he surely didn't want that.  
Drip drip went the blood, hitting the inside of his hip armour and staining his interface device.  
He was hungry and thirsty, but he didn't want to eat or drink.  
He had not talked one word with the last two guard shifts – Brawn and Trailbreaker – and the latter one had only offered him energon once and had not inquired further when he had not reacted.  
Thus his energy levels were slowly deteriorating.

He heard footsteps outside, and by now he could tell which Autobot was coming to exchange the guard.  
It was Jazz, he guessed from the rhythmic, light steps. He always wondered how Jazz managed to walk so lightly when he was so bulky.

Indeed he heard the strange, slightly hoarse voice of the second in command.  
"Hey, Trailbreaker, are you in recharge?"

"No, no. Just thinking a little."  
Shifting and steps were audible, then he heard Trailbreaker leave.  
He didn't turn.

Jazz stared at their prisoner in shock.  
He hadn't seen him for a day and it startled him to see him now.  
Starscream was huddled into a corner, chains dragged after him, forehead against a wall.  
Prowl had finally allowed to have his binding less fierce, his hands were now chained together in front of him. He had pulled his knees up to his chin and embraced his legs.  
The graceful wings were tipped downwards. Now he was no longer a caged in bird. He was a broken caged in bird.  
It was a picture of sheer misery.

"Hey, Starscream!" Jazz called softly.  
The seeker didn't move.  
"Starscream?"

The Decepticon heard that there was concern in Jazz' voice. But he didn't care. And didn't move. He wanted to be left alone.

"Starscream, please show me, are you hearing me?"

No reaction.  
Jazz was scared. Had the Decepticon in some way deactivated vital functions? Or was he playing tricks on him? He sounded and looked normal.

"Please, Starscream, show me that you are … online. Or I will have to call Prowl and have you examined. You wouldn't want that, do you?"

"No."

"Thank you. Starscream, why are you so down?"

Silence.

"Come on, talk with me, please. I can not stand to see you like that."

No reaction.

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

Not convinced, Jazz radioed Trailbreaker and asked him if Starscream had taken energon or water during his shift. When he negated, Jazz also radioed Brawn and asked him the same. The answer was alike. Starscream hadn't eaten or drunk for at least sixteen hours.  
"You are lying to me, Starscream. You must be hungry" Jazz confronted him.

"No."

"Please, take a cube."

"No."

The seeker's behaviour gave Jazz the creeps – because it reminded him so much of himself. He was reliving a situation some years past, only in exchanged roles.  
Some years ago Ratchet had desperately stood in front of him just like this, asking him to eat. But Jazz would refuse.  
No matter that his energy levels were down to ten percent, he would refuse any form of sustenance.  
Until he had collapsed and Ratchet had taken him to the medbay and refuelled him and reloaded his batteries manually.

With a sigh, Jazz deactivated the electric current of the cell door and sat down right by it with his legs crossed.

"Starscream. You don't want to give yourself up only because you happened to end up in an Autobot jail for a week?"

No answer.

"I know what you are doing. I know that you are hungry, but you don't want to eat. You are torturing yourself. What for?"

Starscream clenched his optics shut and considered offlining his audio receptors. He didn't want to hear the babble of that stupid Autobot!

"Come on, I won't let you down here. What is it that makes you down like that? Are you missing your child?"

"Hardly" Starscream spat.

A little too quickly for Jazz' taste.  
"You don't like him?" he asked carefully, certainty slowly creeping into him about the circumstances of the sparking of that child.

"No."

Pained, Jazz gritted his dentals. There was only one possible conclusion.  
The child had been forced upon Starscream. He would have to talk with Ratchet about if that was possible.  
He jerked when he heard a suppressed sob escape Starscream.

"Man, Starscream! You're really down. I have to get you out of here, it can not stay like this! I would radio Prime, but he is out in D.C. with some dudes and Spike. Damn it. Starscream? Don't be startled."

Starscream heard some strange noises. One of them was the cell door opening if he was not mistaken…  
In the next moment he felt a hand on his shoulder and despite Jazz' warning he jerked in shock.  
"Hush, it's me. It's ok. Relax, you are totally tense."  
The hand rubbed his shoulder comfortingly and another one touched his hand, trying to curl around it. He pulled his chained hands away in disgust.

"Leave me alone!" he croaked.

"I'm afraid no." The Autobot sat down right beside him. His hand rested on Starscream's lower arm and when he tried to shake it off, he would just place it there again.  
"Your son… is Megatron the father?"

"Leave me."

"Is it?"

"I don't need to answer you."

"I know. Who is taking care of your baby now? Skywarp?"

"Yes."

"And when he is out on assignment?"

"Thundercracker. Or Soundwave. Or one of the Cassetticons. There is always one there to guard the babies."

"What does Megatron do? Does he try to snatch them?"

"By Primus no, or can you imagine Megatron cuddling with the babies? He lets us raise them, and when they are strong enough to go into war then he will try to corrupt them."

"Is… Skywarp's baby also from him?"

"No, fortunately no. He's Thundercracker's son."

"Alright, I had expected that. So he was… intentional."

"Yes." Starscream snorted bitterly. "Already the day after I had given birth to mine, and I can tell you that was far from pleasant, Skywarp besieged Soundwave with questions how he might be able to spark. They tried some things with him, and there he goes, he's just as fertile as I am. Great, uh? Now Megatron can spark his army."  
Starscream was astonished about himself. Why did he tell that to the Autobot? But somehow he couldn't stop himself. The words were just pouring out of him.  
"Do you know what fertile males are called?"

"No."

"Breeders. It describes it perfectly. In contrast to femmes, who you can seemingly not impregnate by force, you can make a mech spark by raping him. That way you can use such a male as a breeder for whole armies if you like. And it seems Megatron comes to like that now that he knows it works with his seekers."

That confirmed Jazz' suspicion.  
Starscream had been raped.  
His spark melted with compassion and he squeezed the light blue arm gently.

"Are you afraid that he will do it again?" he asked softly.

Starscream bit his lip, tried to shut his mouth. But it wouldn't work. His soul was overloaded with so much emotion, so much frustration that he had to talk. Had to get rid of it.  
"Yes" he whispered. "Yes, I'm afraid. And sure he will do it again. As soon as the little one is old enough to take up normal energon, I will live in constant fear.  
Primus, you don't know how I hate my spark for that ability. I feel so betrayed by my body."

Jazz hung his head.  
"But… here… nothing can happen to you here. At least not from Megatron. Why are you so depressed? Except for the imprisonment of course."

"I don't know" Starscream sighed. "I have no idea. And I hate myself for being so weak. But somehow I can't help it. I have no strength left anymore to fight" he admitted and tears flooded down his cheeks with the realisation.  
He was broken.  
Megatron had finally managed to break him.

He sobbed hard and buried his face between his arms.

Jazz just sat beside him, rubbed his back and arm.  
He nearly cried with the desperate seeker, so strongly did he feel his pain and suffering.  
He gave him the time to cry and waited until the sobs and tears faded.  
"Hush, now, it's alright.  
You don't always have to be strong. You have been strong enough to withstand all that."

Starscream laughed bitterly.  
"I asked him to kill me. When my spark split, it hurt so horribly… I was bound on Scrapper's exam table, chest open down to the spark… I asked Megatron to kill me. I didn't want to live anymore. And I wish he had done it."

Shocked, Jazz finally enclosed Starscream's hand and squeezed it in a comforting gesture.  
"It's ok."

"Nothing is ok!"

"I mean it's ok that you are down. It's ok that you are weak. That you give in."

"Fine, nice that we agree on something here. Now leave me alone."

"No. Starscream, listen please. It is ok that you are hurt, that your strength is drained. But it can come back. It's not a final state. As things changed for the worse for you, they can also become better again. It's not a bad thing that you are weak and feel defeated now. You can gather strength again to stand back up."

"I'd rather not."

"Yeah I know. When you're down in the valley and you are so weak already that you don't find the strength to raise your head, all that you see will be the floor. Nothing to go for. The thing is that you have only to find a little amount of strength. Only so much as you need to raise your head. And when you managed that, you will see the sky, and it will spark the will to go on. To head for it. When your optics are focused on something you want to reach, you will find it surprisingly easy to go that way. But right now, you just don't look. And don't know where to look. It's ok. Sometimes there just are dark times. As long as you don't give up looking for light, you will sooner or later find it again."

Though he didn't want it, the words of the Autobot were a little soothing for Starscream.  
At least somebody talked to him! And even understood him surprisingly well.  
He was just curious now. Jazz claimed to know what he felt like. If he really did, he would not offer him any more energon, for he must know that he wouldn't want it.  
So he nodded slightly, giving Jazz a hint that he had listened to him.  
Jazz patted his shoulder encouragingly.  
"You know, I…"  
Suddenly the face of the Autobot froze.  
"Fuck!" he swore and jumped up. But it was too late. By now also Starscream heard steps in the hallway. A short pause, the screech of metal over metal when a gun was drawn and then quick steps of a running bot.

"It's ok" Jazz called out, "I just… just… damn." No excuse would come up to him that would convince Prowl's logic processors.

In the next moment the security officer stood with his back against the wall opposite to the cell, both guns drawn and pointed at them.  
"What in Primus name…"

Jazz waved at him to calm down. "Nothing, nothing…"

"WHAT? You standing in there, cell door open, your back towards our prisoner is hardly nothing! Not to mention the fact that you should need either me or Red Alert to give the second code to open that cell!"

"I've got a big problem now" Jazz muttered.

Starscream still hadn't moved.  
"He had to come in to help me" he suddenly said. "I entangled in the chain and couldn't get it off myself with my hands bound."

Jazz immediately took it up. "Yeah, and it was no trick, as you see Prowlie, I'm just fine and Starscream didn't, like, stab my back with his wingtip or something."

Starscream chuckled. "Careful, Jazz. You always have to tell yourself that he doesn't get any irony."

"Ah yes, I forgot."

"Out. There. Now." Said Prowl, not in the slightest amused.  
When Jazz was back in the hallway, Prowl carefully got into the cell and checked on Starscream. He found all chains securely on.

"Damn it, Jazz, this will have consequences" he announced.  
"Now draw your gun."

Jazz stared down the hallway and snapped back to Prowl when he addressed him.  
Unwilling, he unsheathed his gun, but didn't really know where to point it at.  
Down the hall came Ratchet, gun ready, and in front of him walked – Thundercracker.

"Hi" the seeker said dryly when he reached Jazz.

The second in command of the Autobots just nodded.  
His heat camera told him that there was a strangely scattered heat emanation from his cockpit.

Prowl waved at Thundercracker to step into the cell.  
With an audible thud he shut the bars behind him.  
It made Thundercracker wince.  
Hopefully Skywarp was right with his trust in the honour of the Autobots.  
Starscream turned his head towards him, but didn't make a move otherwise.  
"Oh, hey Thundercracker" he said tiredly, as if it was the most normal thing of the world that his fellow seeker visited him here.

Thundercracker went down to his knees and opened his cockpit.  
"Skywarp can not hold out any longer." He picked the child out and held it out at Starscream with a meaningful glance.  
For a moment Starscream hesitated to take it.  
But what choice did he have?

The sparkling cried, his face was wet with tears and his vocal processor gave tiny wailing noises.

Watching from outside, Jazz noticed that it didn't look at his father.  
It looked rather lost, indeed. The poor little thing!

Starscream pulled the feeding tube out and offered it to the baby, but the little c-class-fighter turned his head away and cried on.

"He must be hungry" said Thundercracker. "It's just because he is so upset."

"To be parted from Skywarp" Starscream finished the sentence.

The blue seeker nodded gravely.  
He leaned in closer and wanted to whisper into Starscream's audireceptors, but Prowl interfered.  
"No secrets! When you exclude us, we must assume you scheme something."

"For Primus sake, leave them some privacy!" Jazz demanded.

Prowl looked at him like thunderstruck. "You can not be serious."

"I damn am."

"Jazz, they are Decepticons…"

"Oh, really? And? Who cares? For the moment they are our prisoners and can harm no one. Plus there is a baby whose life nobody here would want to endanger. They just have to clear their course, so damn let them talk in private."

"But… that's the point, Jazz! They can not be allowed to plot right under our noses!"

"Prowl, perhaps it maybe that they don't plot anything?"

"Perhaps is a rather bad chance. In fact a 45.7% chance at the moment"

"Oh fuck your percents, Prowl, I want them to be able to sort out their thoughts without us listening."

"I can not allow that as a security officer."

"Fine, then I order it as a second in command in absence of the Prime. Period" Jazz called out, agitated. He very very seldom used his rank to force things, but at the moment his patience just ran out with Prowl.

The security officer stared in open shock at him.  
And from the corner of his optic saw how Thundercracker and Starscream, who had watched the scene in disdain, just turned to each other again and whispered so lowly that they couldn't hear it.

"But… but…"

"The rules?" Jazz sighed, arms crossed. "But but but…. Feelings" he added. "Respect. Sensitivity."

"That will have a sequel!" Prowl huffed, indignant.

Jazz just nodded, accepting. "Let it come."

Starscream grinned at the wall, hearing the two bots who were so vastly different argue.  
"So?"

"Skywarp can not nourish them both" Thundercracker explained lowly. "He's totally drained. Do you think you can somehow keep him here?"

Starscream laughed sadly.  
"Poor child."

"Yeah I know, but I guess it would even be better for you. The Autobots won't leave you down here with him. It will get you advantages."

And one great disadvantage, Starscream thought, I can not just let myself die.  
"So no way to keep him at the Nemesis?"

"No. The milk Skywarp brought was just enough to feed him for two days. We can not come here so often to get the milk from you. So that is – you keep him here. And see to it that you get out as soon as possible. Alright?"

Starscream nodded, still looking at the wall and not at the writhing, weeping child in his arms.

Looking at his leader, Thundercracker had a bad feeling with this.  
The air commander was uncharacteristically beside himself obviously. The fear rose that it might happen he killed the child. The always impending fear of Skywarp.  
For a moment Thundercracker considered to call it off and take the little one back with him. But there was no hope to be able to nourish him in the Nemesis.

"Starscream?"

"Uh?"

"You're ok?"

"No."

Thundercracker hung his head. What had he expected to hear?  
"I think you will be better with the child here" he tried to encourage him.

The wingleader nodded weakly.

"I have to go now. I don't know what Megatron does when he finds out we brought the baby here."

A sad smile curled Starscream's empty face.  
"Who knows… who knows what his ill mind can come up with…" he muttered. "I do. I do."

Thundercracker took a deep intake of air. Then he quickly pressed a kiss to the forehead of the whining child and gave a pat to Starscream's back and rose.

Prowl let him out again.  
When Thundercracker came past Ratchet and Jazz he whispered "Have a close optic on him and the child!"

To his relief, Jazz immediately nodded.  
"I will", he promised.

Prowl occupied himself with the control panel and set a new security code. With a last angry glance at Jazz he led Thundercracker out with his guns pinned into his back.

Starscream stared at the wall and tried to assure himself that he was not falling though he felt like it. His body was tense like a spring and his fans were wheezing.  
As soon as Thundercracker had left a gaping hole had opened up under him and he had felt like being sucked into an abyss.  
So far he had never openly admitted it to himself, but he had planned on killing himself. Yes. That now suddenly grew painfully obvious, now that he had his baby in his arm and could not do so any longer with halfway calm spark.

The writhing and tiny noises seemed to fill his perception like an earthquake and insufferable sirens, making him conscious of his plight.  
He didn't dare to look down at his son, he was too afraid of a storm of despair and terror overwhelming him.  
His anchor, his chains, the tiniest of all cells existing, the baby bound him to his suffering. The last way out was now blocked.  
His freedom ultimately and utterly smashed.  
He just realised there was nothing he was more scared of than that.

When they were gone, Jazz found himself alone with their prisoner and a wailing baby.

"Starscream?" he called out softly.

Again the seeker didn't move.  
Great! All the progress he had made crushed within a breem.

"Starscream, please, pull yourself together."

It broke Jazz' spark to see how the child cried, panic written all over its tiny face, when left in that dark cell in the arms of a father who didn't move a bit and stared blankly at the wall.

"Hush, baby, hush!" Jazz tried to soothe it. But it wouldn't work. "Primus be damned!" he swore. He would have to play his trump card already.  
Angry, he punched in the security code. With his heat cam he had easily been able to see through Prowl what code he had used while the security officer had thought he had blocked the view with his body.  
He was sure Prowl would soon find out that he had opened the cell again, though he had sabotaged the connection to the control room, having a constant "door is locked" sent up, but for the moment he didn't care. He had enraged the security officer already, what did a second break of the same rule matter?  
So he rushed in and fell to his knees beside the seeker and the baby.  
"Hush, hey little one, I know that's all pretty much now, but it'll be ok, calm down!"  
He carefully stroked the baby. It stretched out its tiny arms at him, though it didn't know him at all.  
It made Jazz horribly sad. There obviously was no deeper relationship between father and son at all.  
"May I?" he asked, but Starscream didn't react.  
So Jazz picked the child out of his arms, placed it on his hood and rocked it gently.  
"Hush little one. Hush, I'm sorry it's all so upsetting right now. What is his name, Starscream?"

The slide down into the abyss of panic had stopped abruptly when Jazz had taken the child. Starscream could actually take a breath without having the feeling it wasn't enough. Slowly his tense body relaxed somewhat.  
Perhaps his case was not as hopeless as he had thought, the child not that dependent on exactly him...  
His face twisted into a wry smile.  
"Call him little one. He's used to that."

Unhappy, Jazz fondled the baby and tried his best to soothe it. Slowly the panicked screeching turned into spark-breaking, lost sobs.

"There, sweetling, there. It's going to be ok. Calm down." In his desperation to comfort the child, Jazz began to sing a lullaby.

His beautiful voice sounded through the empty cell tract like flowers blossoming in the desert.

-

"You can not leave him down there" Ratchet said firmly when Thundercracker had taken off and left out of their sight and the two of them were marching back to the Ark.

"What now, only because he has a child I can not leave him in the prison?"

"Exactly."

"That defies my logic."

"May it."

"We can have the child somewhere else and only bring it to him when it's hungry. As far as I can tell he doesn't care about it anyway."

"That's not our place to decide. We don't have a right to part father and son."

Prowl rubbed his forehead strongly, processors behind it growing hot with strain.  
"I will try radio Prime."

"Fine, but hurry."

Prowl headed for the control room and Ratchet returned to the medbay. Wheeljack was there, looking curious. "What the slag is wrong with Starscream? I mean why are his pals regularly coming here to see him? Has he some strange disease that they must care for?"

Ratchet gave a snort. "You could call it that, yes. It's secret, Wheels, I'm sorry. But I guess now the bubble will burst sooner or later anyway. Just have some patience."

-

"You should leave now, Jazz" Starscream murmured.

With a sigh, Jazz nodded. So far obviously nobody had noticed that he was in the cell again. But the longer he stayed in, the smaller grew the chance that it stayed like that.  
He carefully bedded the whining child in Starscream's arm.  
Immediately the whining grew louder again.  
"Hush, child. I'll only go out of the cell. Stay with your daddy."

The baby cried lowly and to Jazz it looked as if he had accepted that he was abandoned. It scratched at his spark to go back to him, but reason kept him.  
Carefully he closed the cell door and removed his sabotaging device.  
Everything seemed to work.

Only a klik later he heard footsteps and thanked Primus, or more, Starscream that he was out of the cell now when Prowl came down the corridor, doorwings shaking with agitation.

"So. Prime is not available, Thundercracker is gone. How's the situation here?"  
He looked into the cell, saw the pitiful crying baby and the motionless Starscream.

Jazz only hoped that it moved the few emotional circuits Prowl had. Because he would have to risk agitating him even further.

"Prowl… We can not…"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard the drill already. Can not leave him in there only because he has a baby."

"Oh come on, look at it, you can not possibly want it to stay that way?"

To Jazz' surprise Prowl didn't just decline but asked:  
"So, what do you propose?"

Jazz thought about it for a moment.  
"The Ambassador's quarters. They are pretty secure."

Prowl obviously considered that for a while.

"I can live with that" he surprisingly said.

Jazz gave him a flashing smile. "Great!"

"I'll go prepare them. And you… I consider exchanging you. You're not a secure guard for Starscream."

"Well… with Prime declaring the matter secret… who will you have guarding him then, now that the matter is obvious? Ratchet? Day and night? Have fun with assigning that to our cheerful medic."

"Shut the hell up!" it suddenly broke out of Prowl.

Shocked, Jazz winced back.  
A mean snigger came out of the cell.  
"Nearly as close to snapping as I am" murmured Starscream.

"I never snap!" Prowl claimed, proving the contrary with his outburst.  
"I'll go secure the quarters now" he said, trying to calm down. "And Primus help you Jazz when I find out that you try to get into that cell again without allowance."  
With that, the security officer stomped away.

"Hell yeah, Primus help me then" Jazz sighed.

-

When Thundercracker arrived at the Nemesis he was prepared for everything.  
He expected Megatron waiting with his gun pointed at Skywarp at their quarters, he expected Skywarp raped or dead, he expected Soundwave dead or raped, or everything.

Carefully he opened their flat's door.  
Inside he found Skywarp huddled over their baby, crying. But not crying as hard as he would have expected in one of the horror scenarios he had imagined.

"Warp? Are you ok?"

His lover looked up at him, optics swimming.  
"Yeah, I mean, as good as I can be. I'm missing him so badly already. And Storm is, too."

With a sigh of relief, Thundercracker embraced his loved ones.  
"I know. I'm sorry I had to do that to you. But there is no other way."

"How was Starscream?"

"Not so well. But I think he will get better now. The Autobots won't leave him and the child in that cellar there. And I think… there is already one who will take good care of them both."

Skywarp smiled sadly. "Jazz?"

"Exactly."

"I also had the impression he was quite touched when I brought the baby there for the first time."

"Did anybody find out yet?"

"I told Soundwave. The Cassetticons were pretty furious. But Soundwave seemingly agreed to our course."

"I hope Megatron won't do anything foolish. Skywarp, always stay near me in the next days. Until all this is settled." Thundercracker was so damn thankful now for his lover's special ability. If he didn't know he could in emergency warp out of pretty much everything he'd go insane with worry.

A blaze of fear rushed over Skywarp's optics. But he nodded bravely.

Thundercracker pressed a kiss onto Skywarp's helmet. "I love you, dear."

"I love you, too."


	5. 5 - Move

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby, but I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" , but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**Other warnings: Suicidal thoughts**

**5 Move**

Finally Starscream looked down at the writhing child in his arms.  
The little one had shut his optics to the cruel world outside, but tears were constantly leaking through the lids. He had pressed his little fists against his mouth and chewed on them.

"Hey, little one" Starscream whispered.

The baby ignored him.

"Come, little one. We have to get along with each other now. TC said you must be hungry. Do you really not want to eat?"  
He shook the baby slightly to get it out of its paralysed state.  
Just like me, he thought. Hungry but refusing to eat out of grief.

"Come, come, little one." He pulled the feeding tube out again and fiddled with the valve until a bit of milk leaked out he caught with his finger.  
Gently he pulled the little fists away and touched the tiny lips with the milky finger.  
Reluctant, the baby pulled its head away.  
But some of the tasty fluid had found its way into his mouth – and with the creamy milk on his glossa, the hunger obviously suddenly became overwhelming.  
He opened his mouth and wailed.  
Starscream tried to stick the valve into his mouth and after some attempts to turn away the little one finally gave his defiance up and enclosed it with his lips.  
With tears still flowing, he began to suckle.

"There, good" said Starscream, not very convincing due to his own depressed state.  
With a sigh, he turned halfway and let himself fall backwards. Lying on his side, he bedded the child on his arm and tried to find a comfortable position for them both.

He felt Jazz' optics on him. Or visor, that was.  
But he ignored him. For a few kliks, he just lay there and enjoyed how the pain of his overfilled milk system slowly faded.

Soon he heard Prowl's firm steps coming down the hall again.

"Everything is ready" the security officer announced.

Starscream didn't move. He wanted to finish feeding the little one first.

The Autobots just watched him.

Jazz was thankful that Prowl didn't say anything to destroy the tentatively begun relationship between father and son.  
They just stood there and watched. Until finally the child pulled back, sated.  
Starscream stored the tube back in its hatch and twisted his head back to look at the Autobots.  
"Ready."

Prowl huffed and opened the cell door.  
He picked up Starscream's right foot and inserted the screw clamp into his turbine again.  
This time he was satisfied with one turbine disabled.  
"I need to bind your hands behind you until we're up in the new room" he informed Starscream, trying to sound neutral.  
The seeker just nodded, put the child into his cockpit and let Prowl cuff his hands firmly behind his back.

The security officer had to help him up with his balance being a bit off. He removed his knee-chain from the wall and slung it around his waist again. Then he wrapped a cloth around the seeker's head to blind his optics.  
With his gun pointed at Starscream's back, he gave him a shove to get out.

"Prowl, the gun down, the child is in there!" Jazz demanded, grabbing Starscream's shoulder to lead him.

Impatient, Prowl pointed the gun at Starscream's head instead of his midsection.

Like that the three of them walked down the corridor and up the stairs.

It took a while until they had led the blinded and bound seeker to the Ambassador's quarters.

They were originally designed to secure the one inside from attacks from the outside, but also worked quite well as a prison with the thick steel door with several locks and a window so small that no normal robot would fit through.  
Not to mention that this part of the Ark stuck in the mountain and there was the rock wall only a meter from the window.

Once inside, Prowl first locked the door behind them. Then he bound the chain to the berth. Only then he loosened the chains of Starscream's hands and bound them in front of him again with a piece of chain between his hands, allowing him a minimum of movement.  
Last, he pulled the cloth off.  
Starscream looked around weakly.  
Nice change. This room was at least four times the size of the cell, it was light in comparison to the jail, though there only was a small chasm in front of the window.  
And there was furniture inside! Wow! A real, padded recharge berth was right behind him, a desk was on the other side of the room and a sink in the corner beside the door.

He wouldn't admit it, but this already felt much better than the cell, and a part of the huge weight on his spark was lifted.  
He let himself fall onto the berth, leaned back and opened his cockpit.  
The baby had curled up in it, nearly recharging, but woke again when the cockpit was opened.  
It looked out expectantly.  
"Wap?" it chirped.

Starscream offlined his optics, pained.  
"No. Warp is not here, I'm sorry" he sneered.

The baby immediately began to cry again due to his aggressive remark.

"Starscream!" Jazz said sadly. "Patience! He hasn't really seen you for over a week, what did you expect?"

Tears of frustration ran over the face of the seeker. But he nodded.  
"You know… he hasn't spoken a word so far. And the first thing he says is 'Warp. That really hurt."

"Yeah, I can understand that. But seriously, don't blame him. Skywarp has nursed and cared for him the last days. Children grow accustomed to that. Love for their parents is not, like, programmed into their systems. That would be fatal would something happen to their parents. So he will mourn the loss of his adopted father and nurse Skywarp for a while, but then he will grow accustomed to this new situation here in a while, don't despair."

With a shaky sigh, Starscream picked the baby out and bedded it on his chassis.  
"I'm your daddy, little one. You will have to live with that."

Prowl shifted uncomfortably.  
"I will need at least one more bot for guard duty. So far it's me, Jazz, Ratchet and Prime who know of this. Who else shall I ask?"  
He looked at Jazz expectantly.

The second in command thought for a while.

"Wheeljack" he then suggested.

Prowl gave him a surprised look. "Wheeljack? Why?"

"Because he's nearest to Ratchet. When they both know, the danger is smaller that it will leak out because they can discuss it. And if I'm not mistaken he once told me he likes children."  
Another reason Jazz preferred to leave unsaid was that the merry and uncomplicated Wheeljack had helped him much with overcoming his depression – perhaps he would be good for Starscream, too.

"Well, alright then. I will talk with him. Otherwise: To undo the chain from the berth is forbidden. To remove the clamp is forbidden. Starscream may under no circumstances leave this room. To give him anything that he might use to harm us or himself his forbidden."

Jazz crossed his arms and tapped with his foot in impatience.  
"Something else that I couldn't guess at perhaps?"

"Don't mock me, Jazz. I'm the one in charge here. And the last word in that matter with the cell is not spoken."

"Indeed."

"So, be careful what you are doing" Prowl warned him and with a last sharp glance, left them. And locked them in.

"Ouf" Jazz groaned. "There is someone really angry."

"Will you have serious trouble with him?" Starscream asked.

"With him? For sure. With Prime? Not likely."  
Jazz fell into the seat by the desk and gazed at father and son.  
"Seriously, what's his name?"

A guilty smile crept over Starscream's face.  
"Guess I will have to be very inventive now."

Jazz' mouth fell open. "You're not seriously telling me that he hasn't got a name?"

"Well…"

"Starscream!"

"So far we got along with just calling him little one."

"No name! The poor little one."

"What's so bad about it. Somehow I just couldn't come up with one. With one I wouldn't regret some day. I mean, you wouldn't be happy either if had named him Roboeater, Drainer, Megascream or something."

Jazz covered his face with a hand and shook his head.  
"Alright, agreed. Better off without a name then. Has Skywarp never pressed on you to name him?"

"Funnily enough, no he hasn't. Just calls him little one as always. He sometimes asked if I had come up with something, but I never did."

The child in question began to grizzle and patted his father's chassis, demanding attention.  
"What's it? Bored? Oh great. And what am I going to do against that? Without Skywarp here, playing silly games with you, or the Cassetticons and Storm."

"Storm is Skywarp's son?"

"Yes. Polar Storm in fact. He has some fancy colour scheme."

"Yeah?" Jazz sought to take up every talk he could to entertain Starscream and distract him from his depression.

"Yeah, he is mainly darkblue, but has purple and green accents. He's pretty sweet."

"Your son his sweet, too."

Disbelieving, Starscream looked at the baby, which just began to cry again.  
"Yeah, I know. I mean, he is awfully handsome. But still I always see so much of Megatron in him. And that hurts."

Jazz nodded understandingly.  
"Clear. But to me he makes the impression his soul has not much of Megatron. And that's the most important thing."

A wry grin curled Starscream's face.  
"Would it be better to have more of me in his soul in your opinion?"

Trapped, Jazz grinned. "Perhaps. At least some streaks."

They heard sounds at the door and a moment later Prowl came in, weapon drawn.  
Behind him followed Ratchet and Wheeljack.

They gathered near the berth and looked down at Starscream and the baby.  
"Well, Hi Starscream!" Wheeljack said.

"Wheeljack."

"What shall I say. Interesting turn of events that is. Hey there, little one, why are you crying?"

Starscream winked at Jazz. "See? It's quite practical, everybody knows his name by instinct."

The baby had pressed its face against Starscream's chassis and whined unhappily.  
"He misses his nanny Skywarp" Starscream explained.

"Aww, there. Poor thing. How old is he?"

"Three months and some days."

"And do I see that right, a c-class-fighter."

"Yeah" Starscream sighed sadly. "Megatron will be hell proud of his son one day."

"Oh." Wheeljack winced back. "Megatron?"  
Prowls mouth fell open in shock.

"I beg you, who else would be able to rape me if not my leader" Starscream sneered, sick of nebulous inklings.

Wheeljack nodded gravely.  
"I'm sorry."

"Spare your pity."

"As you wish. Did Soundwave help you with him?"

"Yeah." How the pit did Wheeljack know those things?

Finally the child turned to look at the new visitors.

It froze in shock when its stare fell on the masked mech with the huge headfins.

Wheeljack smiled, optics bright. "Weird guy am I, uh?" he said, and the headfins flashed with every word.

The child bobbed and shrieked in a mixture of shock and glee.

"Yeah, that just happens when I talk" Wheeljack said and the baby's tear-soaked sweet little face lit up in a laugh. It clapped its tiny hands in an awkward gesture of joy and continued staring at Wheeljack, waiting for the headfins to flash again.

Wheeljack laughed, making the light go on and off quickly and the little one screeched in joy.

Starscream rolled his optics. "Great, will I have to have headfins installed now to entertain my baby?"

"I think I can do that" Wheeljack laughed.  
"I'll have next shift" he announced and shoved Jazz out of the seat.

Ratchet unloaded some energon cubes and bottles to the table.  
"These should keep you nourished, Starscream. In the bottles are fluids with a high metal and polyurethane percentage. Serve yourself, take whatever you need. Do you need something special for the baby?"

The seeker shook his head.

"Fine. I'll see you in the morning then, when I take up the next shift."

Ratchet turned to leave and pulled Jazz along. Prowl followed suit.

When the door shut behind them, Starscream made a face.  
"So Jazz will get his beating now?"

Wheeljack chuckled.  
"I guess he can defend himself."

"You're not concerned about him?"

"Not seriously. Prowl can in fact not do anything against him without Prime's agreement due to him being second in command. But I mean, that was pretty dumb of him to let himself be caught in your cell. Punishment for that must be, eh?"

"Guess so."  
Starscream lay down on the berth comfortably and bedded the child on his chassis.  
"Since you are to guard me anyways, can you watch over that I don't accidentally smash the baby in recharge? I have never slept with him in my berth. Skywarp always does that with his baby, but I don't utterly trust myself there."

"I will" assured Wheeljack.

Halfway comforted, Starscream placed a hand on the baby's back to know what it was doing and offlined his optics to recharge.  
He was damn tired.

Before he fell into recharge, his thoughts began to rush uncontrollably through his central processors.  
Somehow he was disappointed.  
The move to the new room had not really changed his mood. Even in the contrary. Now he had the feeling that he might be stuck here forever. In the prison he knew that things would change. But here... it might as well happen that the Autobots would keep him there for years, forcing him to nourish the baby and not willing to give him a death sentence for his crimes against them because of the little one.  
And when he thought about it... he realised that he didn't even want to go back to the Nemesis.  
He didn't know where to go to at all.  
There was no way.  
Only two solutions came to his mind.  
Either he closed his hands a little tighter around the baby's head and snapped its neck. Then the Autobots would surely sentence him to death and everything would be solved.  
Or he tried to get to death by himself, leaving the little one behind him to a fate he would never know.  
His fingers trailed the short, slim neck that was so ridiculously thin for the big head.  
But something held him back. What was the use of killing them both? Perhaps the little one would somehow manage to get along.

Feeling horribly depressed, he finally slipped into a recharge full of nightmares.

Prowl, Ratchet and Jazz marched down the corridor.  
"I didn't have a chance to talk with Prime in peace, he's always in action down in Washington D.C. at the moment" Prowl informed Jazz.  
"I want to know how you got the codes for the cell, Jazz."

The second in command had wanted to think about an excuse, but now realised he had forgotten to do so.  
"Um… I'm a saboteur. I have to know how such things work."

"Jazz! You're using your abilities against your own people?"

"Well… sure! You also, like, cuff the twins and throw them into your jail. Isn't that pretty the same thing?"

"No! That doesn't endanger our security. In contrary. But there obviously is a leakage in security you know of and use. I need to know that!"

"If that pacifies you, it's nothing anyone but me can do."

"Doesn't pacify my at all, I want to know how!" Prowl demanded angrily.

"No way, a magician would never explain his tricks to his audience."

"I'm not your audience, I'm security officer! I demand to be informed about that leak in security!"

"I'll get ma lawyer first" Jazz mumbled.

"Jazz, don't wear out my patience!" Prowl said, clearly threatening.

They had reached a main crossroad in the Ark. Ratchet turned shortly and waved at them, then marched off for his medbay, leaving them alone with their bickering.

"I can not believe you defy me in this!" Prowl said. "How can you deem your tricks higher than the security of the Ark?"

"The Ark is not in danger Prowl, believe me!" Jazz tried to excuse himself.

"How would you know?"

"How I know? I know because I know I'm an Autobot and only I can do what I did to get the codes, and I'm not dangerous for the Ark!"

"You are not allowed to breach the security systems here. The rule of having important things double-coded has a sense, and you blatantly proved it by showing that you do something foolish when equipped with both codes. Red Alert or I would never have allowed you to just open that cell door and go in to Starscream, it was a crime against our laws to do that."

"I'm aware of that, Prowl. I'm sorry but I couldn't help it at the moment because I knew that you wouldn't give me the codes and I had to go in there."

"I don't believe that anything could be so important. No to mention that it doesn't change that you should not have been able to go in there in the first place. Jazz don't defy my. How did you get the codes?"

"I won't tell you."

Prowl's face became very very grim.  
"You are deliberately breaking Autobot law. I can not pass that. No matter who you are."

"Fine, will you put me into your beloved prison now?"

"In fact… yes, you are under arrest. Not in the jail, but confined to your quarters. I don't want to see you outside until Prime has held court about this."

Jazz stared with open mouth.  
"No. Definitely no, Prowl. No way."

"Are you questioning my authority?"

Jazz felt that he was walking on very, very thin ice.  
"Prowl… you can not be serious! It's not that big a deal…"

"For Primus sake Jazz! Starscream could have done something to you, you were even carrying your weapon sheathed in there! He could have taken it from you, killed you and would have been set loose amidst our very headquarters! And you call that no big deal?!"

"But I knew what I was doing! I knew that he wouldn't do that!"

"What gave you that certainty? My calculations tell me that the likelihood of him trying such a thing was about 56.7% …."

"To hell with your logic processors!" Jazz called out, agitated. "My emotional centre told me a 100% that Starscream was not capable of anything like that at that moment, and now who was right?"

"We can not tell that because of our assumptions having a small intersection."

Jazz smacked his forehead.  
"Well computed, Prowl."

"Enough. To your quarters, now. I will call out for Prime urgently and see if we can deal with this quickly. Until then you are not to leave your quarters and especially not to get in contact with our prisoner."

Jazz couldn't believe it. But when he looked into Prowl's cold blue optics he knew better than to defy him further.  
Snapping his mouth shut, he turned on his heel and marched for his quarters, fuming.

Starscream woke from sounds.  
When he onlined his optics, he found it was light again in the room. Checking his internal chronometer, he realised he had recharged for nearly eight hours.  
Still he did not really feel rested.

He struggled to turn his head and saw that Ratchet had just come in to replace Wheeljack.

The child was struggling on his chest and babbled lowly.  
He gave it a tentative pat. Immediately the small, round head turned and bright white optics looked at him. The face of his baby was questioning, as if he didn't know what to make of his father.  
Starscream tried to smile. He guessed his smile wasn't very convincing, since the child smiled back just halfway happy.  
"It's ok little one. I know you're unhappy. Are you hungry?"  
No answer.

Fighting with his weakened body, Starscream struggled to come up into a sitting position.  
The chain around his knee hindered him somewhat, but he found he could sit halfway comfortable on the berth with his legs crossed.

He felt Wheeljack's well-meaning optics on him when he revealed the feeding tube and stuck the valve into the baby's mouth.  
"There" he crooned.  
Not very enthusiastic, the child began to suckle.

Ratchet had brought a crate with broken things to occupy himself with repairing during his shift and set it down at the desk.

"Oooh Ratchet" Wheeljack said. "Be careful! Don't let Prowl catch you with this! Starscream could, like, grab a shrapnel and stab you with it."

"Hell yeah" the medic grumbled. "Or punch a screw through my helmet."

"I could also, um… strangle you with my chain?" suggested Starscream, joining in their Prowl-mocking. "See, he'll have to take the chains off of me, they are dangerous weapons!"

"Yeah, that would be a good idea!" Wheeljack assured. "Or just take his very own tools to disassemble him."

Wheeljack laughed and Starscream couldn't help but at least grin a little. Funny that Prowl's own people made fun of his paranoia.

As if he had heard them, just a klik later there were sounds with the door being unlocked and the security officer came in.  
"Hello."

"Morning!" Wheeljack answered gleefully.

Ratchet only grumbled something.

Prowl halted in the middle of the room and inspected Ratchet's crate.  
He seemed to think for a good while if he should say something.  
Starscream was so curious to see if he really did.  
And he should not be disappointed.  
"Ratchet… please take care that Starscream can't reach something dangerous."

"I am dangerous, you know" grumbled Ratchet. "I will take care that he doesn't get his mitts on me, yeah."

Prowl offlined his optics for a moment, feeling that he was being mocked but not really understanding it.

"I don't see why you don't take this seriously."

"I take this very seriously" Ratchet stated.  
"And I know that Starscream is too weak to even bend my chevron when he's not rested after eight hours of recharge. That might be the information that you were missing to estimate the situation."

A shiver ran through Starscream. So the medic knew already…  
He felt Prowl's gaze on him.  
"When you say so" he gave in. "Anyways, I have organised a net meeting with Prime in two kliks. I wanted to ask you, Wheeljack, if you would perhaps lengthen your shift a little because I would like Ratchet to attend."

Wheeljack nodded. "No problem."

"So, Ratchet, would you please attend the meeting?"

The medic hesitated for a moment. Then he said "I'll come."

"Well. 8.30 in the small conference room" Prowl announced, saluted and marched out.

Wheeljack let out a good amount of air from his central cooling pipe, mimicking a human sigh.  
"Well, let's hope he also gets Jazz."

"For sure" Ratchet said.

"Why hope that?" Starscream asked.

"Because he confined him to his quarters for denying to tell him how he got the second security codes of your cell!" Wheeljack explained merrily.

"He did what? Imprisoned Jazz in his quarters?"

"In Jazz' quarters, not his own of course" Wheeljack said, chuckling.

Starscream made a face. "I never expected something else, Wheeljack! But as you say so… have you ever been in Prowl's quarters?"

Both Autobots negated.

"I bet he has a good collection of cuffs and whips" Starscream imagined.

Wheeljack laughed. "That's a common joke around here that he has a kink. Mainly the twins feed that. Especially with first-hand experiences from Prowl's jail."

"He imprisons Autobots?"

"Hell yeah" Wheeljack chuckled. "And the twins happen to find themselves in that cellar peculiarly often. Tracks follows close by."

"Interesting."

The child struggled and let the teat go.  
Starscream felt that his milk system was pretty empty.  
He knew that it weakened him. Since that short episode when he had felt a little better after the walk outside with Jazz he had taken neither sustenance nor water. And since he was feeding the child again, his systems drained quickly.  
He welcomed it.  
Soon blissful oblivion would come over him.

After a while, Ratchet gave a sigh and rose.  
"I'll be gone then."

"Yeah alright." Wheeljack bowed over the crate.

"Don't touch it, it will explode!" Ratchet said, sounding totally serious.

Wheeljack laughed out. "Seriously, Ratchet, not everything I touch explodes."

A tiny smile curled the grumpy medic's lips.

"Serve yourself if you want." With that, he left, and Wheeljack took his place at the desk, continuing his task with repairing spare parts.

Jazz jumped up when he heard the doorbuzzer.  
He opened and found Prowl standing outside.

"Hello" the security officer greeted emotionless.

Jazz sneered. "Good morning."

"We have a netmeeting with Prime in a few kliks. Please attend."

"When it allows me to leave my quarters, sure" Jazz grumbled.  
The security officer ignored him.

Jazz had practically thought to and fro the whole night if he should submit to Prowl's order, but had never dared to leave his quarters. Though he outranked Prowl, he knew it would just be a very bad idea to tick him off. So he finally had accepted and decided to stay until he was fetched. Though it had been hard.  
Somehow the thought of the depressed seeker hadn't left him peace. Again and again his mind circled around him. He felt sorry for him - despite everything. They had been enemies for millennia, and Starscream had done terrible things. But being raped was still something that should happen to nobody. It had clearly imprinted deeply in the Decepticon, though he was already abused pretty much on a daily basis as far as Jazz knew. He was tough. It must have been horrible to make him think it finally broke him.  
And a child had come from it! A child of Megatron and Starscream alright, but it looked very cute and harmless - so far. A transformers baby. Not even only one! Skywarp had one, too! They were able to multiply again! After millennia of erasing themselves!  
He desperately wanted to see them again.

They made for the small conference room and met Ratchet there.

"Hey Ratchman" Jazz greeted. "How's Starscream and the kid?"

The medic made a vague gesture. "Coping."

Prowl occupied himself with the computer terminal.  
"Hi Red Alert, it's Prowl here. We're in the conference room now, please give us the line."

"Prime is not there yet, but line is open" the security supervisor informed.

"Thank you."  
Prowl checked a datapad and then gave it over to Jazz.

It was his charge against the second in command.

Jazz only skimmed through it and then placed it on the table. He knew that protocol was demanding Prowl to inform him about the accusations he would make before the "court" was held by Prime joining the meeting. But he didn't care.

For a few kliks the three bots sat in silence.  
Then the screen on the wall flashed. They saw an empty room and heard some noises. Only after some mikrokliks Prime sat down and adjusted the camera in his arm, appearing on their screen.  
"Good morning lads" he greeted and they could tell he was tired and not exactly pleased about being called to this meeting.

"I'm sorry I need to disturb you, Prime" Prowl began. "But I'm afraid I need your superior judgement here. As you know Jazz was on guard duty at Starscream's cell.  
He once was allowed into the cell by Red Alert to open the water tap for Starscream. But yesterday I caught him in the cell though neither me nor Red Alert have given him allowance. He knew the second code."

Prime rubbed his brow and nodded.  
"And?"

"And that's a crime against Autobot law!" Prowl said, indignant.

"What exactly happened?"

"I sent you my report" Prowl reminded the Prime.

Optimus seemed to be a little embarrassed. "Oh, yeah. I'm afraid I didn't get to read it yesterday."  
They saw how Prime rummaged around on the desk and found himself a datapad.  
After some microkliks of scanning it he closed his optics. "Well… I think I don't have the time to read that now. I only have half an hour until I have to attend a meeting with the local politicians."

He gave Jazz and Ratchet a look, pointing at the datapad. "A prowlworthy report" he muttered, though he of course knew that Prowl would hear him just as the other two.  
All of them knew that reports fulfilling all military standards tended to be long. And that Prowl tended to fulfil all military standards.  
"So, give me a short overview please."

Prowl huffed. "Yesterday at 15.34 when I came down to the cell tract with Ratchet and Thundercracker, I found Jazz in the cell instead of…"

"Thundercracker?!" Prime asked surprised.

Prowled offlined his optics, desperate.  
"Yes, Thundercracker. I sent you a report about that only half an hour after it happened. Thundercracker was here yesterday and brought Starscream's child. It's now here, and we have moved Starscream to the Ambassador's quarters."

"Oh."

Jazz couldn't help but chuckle. Prowl was so eager to do everything just right. Only that it tended to come to nothing because of the other people's more… relaxed handling of situations.  
Prime had quite obviously not read any of Prowl's reports.

The tactician stared at the table, trying to calm himself down, realising just that.

"So… the baby will stay there?" Prime asked carefully.

"Yes" confirmed Prowl. "The baby will stay here. To come to the point… Jazz was in that cell though he should not have been able to. He obviously possessed the security codes only me and Red Alert should have and used them. I asked him to tell me how he got them to do something against that security leakage, but he refuses."

"That's your point of view."

"Yes, that's the very short form of it."

"Ok, now I want the very short point of Jazz' view."

"Hell, yeah I was in that cell and I had the codes" Jazz explained, "I don't deny that. But I can assure you the way I got them is exclusive for me. There is no security leakage. Starscream was in a very bad shape and needed assistance, I could not let him down there and was sure that Prowl and Red would not give me the allowance to go in there."

"Jazz had his weapon with him" Prowl interfered. "Sheathed."

"What exactly do you mean by "Starscream was in a bad shape", Jazz?" Prime asked.

"He's deeply depressive!" Jazz blustered out. "He refuses all sustenance, he grows weaker with every day and is just plainly totally down. He needs help, man!"

Prime rubbed his faceplate, thinking.  
"And now he's in the Ambassador's quarters?"

"Yeah."

"How does he fare there?"

Both Prowl and Jazz gave looks to Ratchet.  
The medic shrugged.  
"Better than in the cell, but still refusing sustenance. And since he nurses regularly now, I think he will fade fast."

"What are the security measures?"

"His right turbine is blocked and he his chained to the wall by the left leg" Prowl said. "His hands are bound with one meter chain between them."

"Alright. That sounds reasonable to me. Jazz, what do you think is the reason for him denying sustenance?"

"I don't want to discuss that over this relatively insecure line. It might be Blaster hears it all. Anyways, I think he has his reasons. We really have to help."

"Do you think the conditions in the Ambassador's are good enough for him to recover?"

"I guess it's the best we get. I think it's ok."

"Fine, then that is settled, he stays there. Offer him everything he needs. Loosen his bonding if possible."

"Prime… what about the codes?" Prowl asked desperately. This was not going anywhere near to what he had hoped for.

"The codes? Ah yes. Remember, Prowl, Jazz is a saboteur. It's his job to be able to get codes and break out of or into cells if that is necessary. I see it was a breaking of our rules and I don't endorse it, but I don't see it as so pressing. I will deal with it when I come back to the Ark, alright?"

"But… the Ark's security…"

"Is in good hand's with Jazz, I'm sure of that" Prime said. He smiled. "I have an advice for you, Prowl. Don't get cross with the second. You wouldn't expect it from his normal behaviour, but he can get very uncomfortable when you manage to enrage him."

"Awww Prime, you exaggerate!" Jazz said, laughing.

"Seriously, Prowl, it's ok. I can live with Jazz being able to break out of or into our own jail. I wouldn't know what harm should come from that. And when he says that only he can use that security leak, I just trust him."

Resigned, Prowl nodded. "I follow your judgement, Prime."

"Alright. So everything cleared up for now?"

"Yes, I guess."

"Fine, then allow me to retreat, and believe me one thing… you're better off with having one halfway functional Prime than a whole cabinet full of politicians."  
With a smile in his optics, he closed the line.

"Can you have an optic on him?" Starscream asked and gestured that he would set the little one down to the floor.

Wheeljack nodded. "Sure."

As soon as Starscream had let go of the child, the little one fell to his hand's and knees and scrambled away, curious to inspect the room.

Starscream looked around.  
"Wheeljack? There is a screw lying over there under that board thing. Pick that up. He stuffs everything he can get his hands on into his mouth, and I'm sure a screw in his d.u. wouldn't be healthy."

"Of course." The engineer jumped up and went down to his knees to pick the screw up Starscream had pointed at.  
The child screeched and quickly scrambled towards him and grabbed his foot.  
"Hey there!" the engineer laughed and carefully turned around.  
The baby sat on his aft and looked expectantly at him.  
"Up for playing, uh? What does he like to play, Starscream?"

"Um… I don't really know."

Wheeljack rose and rummaged around in the crate. He picked out a huge screw and nut and sat down on the floor, showing it to the child. "Here, see? That belongs together, like this!" he put the nut on the screw. Then he parted it again and gave it to the baby.  
The little one instinctively grabbed the things and indeed began to chew on the nut, but it was too big for him to swallow. He threw it away.

"Oh, I think building is not so much his kind of thing" Starscream said, observing them from the berth. It made him kind of sad that a so far complete stranger for the child got along with it with so much ease while he struggled with only reading his basic needs.

"Obviously" Wheeljack stated, grinning. "So what then? Let me guess. You're a little flyer. Want to chase?" He pointed a finger at the baby and then quickly pulled it away.  
The little hands instinctively tried to reach out.  
Laughing, Wheeljack circled his finger around in the air and the baby tried to catch it.  
"Can he transform?" he asked.

"Primus beware, no. That would be a mess, imagine he would jet around here!"

"Hehe. Better not." Wheeljack pulled his hand further away, making the child crawl after it and jump up to reach it.  
The baby laughed in glee.

The pain Starscream felt about it lessened and turned into acceptance.  
At least there would be people here who got along well with the baby. Now he would only need to find out if Ratchet would be able to feed it artificially.

Jazz rushed up to the Ambassador's quarters with Ratchet following him suit.

He tried the code he knew for the door but found it didn't work.

"Prowl installed a new one" Ratchet said and gave it to Jazz.

"Old Mr. Paranoia" Jazz sighed.

When they came in, they found Wheeljack sitting on the floor, playing with the gleefully chirping child.

"Hey there! Wheels. And the little one. Starscream?"

"Hey Jazz. Did he let you go from your quarters?" Starscream asked ironically.

"Hehe, yeah. And he better do! Imagine, Prime warned him of me. He told Prowl not to enrage the second in command, stated I could get very ugly when I'm angry. Seriously, Wheels, can you imagine that?"

The engineer laughed. "Clear! Jazz, you're the meanest of us all here!"

"Absolutely. Prowl would be surprised about the kinks I have." He laughed.  
Inconspicuously he looked at Starscream with his heatcam.  
Millennia of experience in reading the heat emissions of mechs told him that his systems were running on a narrow margin.  
The temperature of his peripheral motion systems was extraordinary low, indicating that he had moved little in the last breems. Also the less vital electrical systems were pretty cold, showing that they were under-used. Only the very core around his engines and spark chamber and his head had the ideal operational temperature of 42°.  
And his digestion unit was invisible to him – ergo had the temperature of the surroundings.  
That was definitely not normal.  
It saddened him.  
He had to hurry. The seeker would not hold on for much longer without sustenance.

"Prime was alright with having you live here from now on" he said gently. "No more cell for you."

A weak smile.

"Do you want to have a walk outside?"

Starscream shook his head.

If he agreed to a walk, it would surely show how weak he already was and it might be Ratchet in some way forced him to reenergise. It would be better if he pretended everything was just fine and then passed away silently in recharge.  
For a moment he regretted his decision. He was sad that he would never see Thundercracker and Skywarp again. They had shared such a long time as comrades … it was a shame he couldn't even say good-bye.  
But then he thought if that was all he regretted – it surely didn't weigh up all those things which were chasing him away.

"What do you want to do?" Jazz asked him.

He just shook his head slightly.

"But… come on. We could, like, play a game or so."

Starscream made a face. "Play a game?"

"Yeah! The humans have a whole lot of games they play. It's fun!"  
The child had lost interest in Wheeljack and had crawled up to Jazz and now patted the tire in his foot, curious about the strangely feeling material.  
"Hey little one!" Jazz called out laughing. He picked the child up and rocked it on his hood. "Do we wanna make your daddy play a game with us? Do we?"

The little c-class-fighter giggled, not really understanding what the huge black and white bot was saying to him but feeling that it was meant nicely.

"We could begin with yahtzee, what do you think? Yes?"

"I don't want to" Starscream stated weakly.

"Come on, it'll pass a little time and be fun!"

"Pass time. What sense does it make? Do you still wait for Megatron wanting me back?" Starscream asked angrily.  
"You will have to keep me here for two years. Two damn years until I don't need to feed the little one anymore. Then he will come and get me. Or us, that is."

Jazz shook his head violently, understanding the hint that Megatron would try to impregnate Starscream again. "No, we will not allow him."

"Oh great, that means I have to spend the next years imprisoned here only because you want to protect me from Megatron?"

"No! I mean… Starscream…"

"Yeah, come on, ask me, Jazz, ask me if I would change sides! Never! If someone asked me if life could grow any worse, I would say: Primus, yes, I could be an Autobot!"

"Aww come on, you can not be serious! What's so bad about being an Autobot! At least you don't get forced and raped as an Autobot!" Jazz countered, agitated.

"Weaklings!" Starscream screeched, angry about the fact that Jazz obviously wanted him to join their ranks. "What a pitiful life is that to loom around here, protect those stupid, useless fleshlings and play sheep to a huge dork who all call Prime because it's so wonderfully easy to just follow and leave the decisions to others!"

Sudden silence settled in the room. Ratchet and Wheeljack were looking at each other shortly, Jazz was staring with open mouth at Starscream. By all means he had not expected such a violent outburst when he brought the topic of side changing up! In fact he had had so much hope that it could work, after Starscream had been abused so badly…. From his perspective, what was there to like about being a Decepticon!  
"But… all the pain and fear and suffering… how can you possibly want that!" he wondered. "Brute force, always on your own, nobody you can trust! Danger lurking around every corner in form of your own so called comrades! Scrap as soon as you get weakened somehow! I mean… look… when I get shot up in battle, I know that somebody is gonna pick me up and bring me up to Ratchman and that he will repair me and bring me back to my feet. Do you know how great that feeling is to just trust in somebody? Anybody around?"

In truth, Starscream had to admit he knew that feeling – in Skywarp only, but he had experienced it. It had felt good.

"I don't care" he snapped. "When I get shot up in battle so badly that I can't patch up myself, I will just accept my fate."

"Yeah, just as you do here" Wheeljack suddenly interfered. "Turn your tail and run. Is that fighting what you do there, Starscream? Starving yourself to deactivation? No."

"No, I admit that's giving up!" Starscream screeched. "Because he managed to finally break me. I think 140 000 years are enough to be proud of having abided beside Megatron without giving in. Now I can go in peace when I say that I finally give up. That I have to admit he is stronger than me, just the most brutal ill mind in the whole universe. With that, he really deserves his throne of the Decepticons. I would never in my life have thought about raping someone. So I guess that's not my place to take."

For a good while there was an awkward silence after that outburst.

"Starscream…" Jazz began but realised he was walking on too thin ice to improvise just now.

Abruptly, Starscream turned his face to the wall and ignored Jazz.

Disappointed, Jazz pouted. He had to admit deep in his spark he had hoped that changing sides was an option for Starscream.  
But since that obviously was not the case, he had to find other ways to prove to him that life was worth living.  
He had to get Starscream entertained! What was life worth when you just waited for your death? Nothing of course. He had to find something that would make Starscream change his mind. But what could it be? The baby obviously wouldn't keep him here and it would be a horrible mistake to try to make him a bad conscience because of it. That would only drive him further away.  
And he had the bad feeling that flying was not enough to keep a life-sick seeker in his spark.  
What else could there be that would convince him? What had he loved in his life before Megatron raped him?

"Starscream. Please give it a chance."

Silence.

Jazz sighed.

"Jazz, you have a patrol in a breem" Ratchet finally said. "It's my shift here anyway."

Resigned, Jazz put the baby down to the floor. It gazed up at him unhappily and made pleading little noises.  
He smiled down at it. "I will be back in some hours."  
For a few seconds he waited for Starscream to turn to him to give him a chance to say good-bye, but the seeker didn't move.

Sad, he left with a wave at Wheeljack and Ratchet.

While the seeker was not looking at them, Wheeljack gestured at Ratchet that he would want to have a talk with him in private and that he would use the computer terminal to write messages to him. Then he also left after giving the baby an affectionate pat.

When the door closed behind him, tears began to swell in the baby's optics and it wailed unhappily.  
"Fash fash!"

"He will also come back, little one" Ratchet tried to calm it.

It crawled over to the door and patted against it. When it didn't move, the baby curled up on the floor and cried, hard.

Ratchet waited a good deal for Starscream to react, but the seeker ignored his baby.

With a sigh the medic rose and fetched the baby. But he did not feel very confident, he was not naturally good with children. Insecurely he grabbed him carefully and held him against his chest.  
"There, there, little one, it's ok, they will all come back. Hush." He tried to rock the baby, but it did not exactly calm down.

On his way from the door to the desk Ratchet inconspicuously shortly lifted the bottles which stood on the table at the head of Starscream's berth.  
They were all untouched.

Sitting down at the terminal, Ratchet began research about what Starscream had taken up in the time he was their prisoner now. It wasn't exactly calming. If the reports were correct, Starscream had only once taken two small cubes of energon from Jazz and had only thrice drunk water from the tap in the cell. In whole only 400 l had been taken from that tap, and considering that Starscream had drunk with his hands bound directly from the stream, he could guess that a good deal of the water had gone to the drain. Counting the nursing into his need, he must be desperate for fluids.  
The child in Ratchet's hand struggled and gestured into Starscream's direction.

The medic leaned over to the berth. "The baby wants to be with you" he said and carefully set the child down on Starscream's chest.  
A glance at Starscream's face showed him that the seeker was crying silently. Glittering tears rolled over his cheeks.

"Starscream… " Ratchet began, but didn't know what to say. In the face of the broken mech, he felt that nothing that came to his mind would help him.  
He could heal wounds in chassis and engines, but what was there that could heal the wounds in his spark?  
In a need surprising for himself, he enclosed the lax blue hand with his own and gave it a comforting squeeze.  
There was no reaction.

Resigned, he returned to the desk.  
He found that Wheeljack had by now written a message to him.  
He doesn't look, we can write, Ratchet answered.

Any idea how to help?

Not a least bit. And I think we don't have much time left. I will have to force him to drink soon. With every nursing he must be getting more dehydrated. Don't you have a clue?

I think we have to set him free.

Ratchet gave a short look over to the berth.  
The blue hand had risen to the cold chest and slowly fondled the still whining child.  
At least. But it looked so weak and… final…  
Ratchet was sure by now that Starscream was determined to die. They would have to be careful.

Wheels… are you sure? I have the creepy feeling that when we set him loose, he will jump off the next cliff, be it with out without the child. We can not do that.

So serious already? Sure?  
Ratchet turned to the still mech on the berth.  
"Starscream? Would you… do you want to go back to the Nemesis?"

New tears welled from the ruby optics.  
"No" breathed Starscream.

Jazz was eager to come back home from the patrol. He had checked the outer rim of the territory together with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe – no help at all with dealing with the problem at hand.

Thinking about who he could ask for advice, he realised that the bots he would trust in this were already in it anyway – Ratchet and Wheeljack.  
Otherwise the only one he would perhaps ask was Hound – but Hound was in Washington D.C. with Prime.  
Damn it!

Jazz raced home, leaving the twins behind in his hurry.

He even rode a good deal within the Ark to be quicker, only when he reached the stairs up he transformed and ran the rest of the way.

He was two hours too early for his shift, but he entered the Ambassador's anyway.

Inside he found Ratchet still occupied with his spare parts.  
Starscream lay on the berth just as he had left him – the baby on his chest, recharging.  
"Hey folks!"

"You're too early" Ratchet grumbled.

"Yeah I know. I thought you wouldn't mind."

The medic gave a snort.

When Jazz stepped up to the berth and took a picture, it pained his spark to look at it.  
There were marks of cleaning fluid all over Starscream's cheeks. His optics had offlined, his fans hummed lowly.

Jazz crouched down beside Ratchet and gave him a despaired look, pointing at Starscream.

"I tried to make him eat, he refused. But I will not just let him leave" the medic whispered.

Jazz nodded. "When?"

"When what?"

"When will you need to force him?"

Ratchet made an estimating gesture. "Two days."

"Alright. Leave me alone with him, will ya?"

With a sigh, the medic nodded.  
He rose, collected his things and left.

Jazz took his seat at the desk and stared at father and son for a while.  
Starscream's body temperature had fallen even more. His limbs were completely passive, no hydraulics had been moved for at least half an hour. The warmest point was still his spark, but by now even his head temperature had fallen below 40, showing that his computing lessened.  
And his engines were too cold and quiet for recharge. Jazz guessed that they were doing nothing to reload the batteries, the wires were all below what they should be in recharge mode.

Desperately Jazz tried to think of something that could cheer the seeker up.  
Only so little time left!  
Two days and Ratchet would reenergise him by force if he did not take up sustenance voluntarily.  
And Jazz knew that be forced was all but comfortable.

Sad, he thought back, remembering how Wheeljack had tackled him down to the treating table when Ratchet had forced the tube into his throat.  
They had to bind him to the table to still him because he was still struggling, though weakly. He received electrical reload, energon via d.u. tube and highly concentrated blood conserves through an iv. Even that, despite his horrible belonephobia.  
He had the bad feeling that they wouldn't get around that with Starscream.  
Thinking further, he tried to find out the trigger experience that had brought him out of his depression. He couldn't really make out one single thing, but remembered some events which had influenced him. He would try to use that knowledge to help Starscream.

His gaze rested on the baby. Wanting to get the image, he took a picture with his optical camera.  
The little one was a wonderful child, he found. He had a design unlike anyone else here. In heritage quite obviously cybertronian design would come up again, no matter if the parents had adopted earth-like altmodes.  
The baby was by now about a meter tall. His chest was made up by the forepart of his altmode, the snout and cockpit of the c-class-fighter. The middle turbines protruded from his shoulders, but were not quite as high as the intakes of the f-15 eagle seeker mode. His waist and hips were slim, but he had two stout secondary turbines as lower legs. They were dark red, while nearly everything else on the little one was light grey. The helmet had a nice, aerodynamic design with a broad forehead guard that was slightly golden. Thick, broad wings extended from his back in the form of a half circle.  
His face was small and pointy, very seeker-like. It was dark anthracite, just like Starscream's. His optics were huge in comparison to the face. Jazz knew that was partly because of him being a baby, but he believed that they would still be big when he was adult. And they were white. Bright white. He had nothing of Megatron in his face.  
Jazz believed he would be awesome when he was grown.

Sad, he searched his music archive and collected a playlist fitting his mood.  
Playing it internally, he listened and watched the two recharging Decepticons.

When Ratchet reached the medbay, he found Wheeljack sitting there.  
"Hi."

"Hey Wheels." He set the crate down.

When he had sat down, Wheeljack asked: "What are we gonna do?"

Ratchet shook his head, helpless. "No idea. When he really doesn't even want to go back to the Nemesis… I always thought in last instance we could just offer him his freedom and it would be alright, but it seems that's not so. Jazz knows that I will not just let him die, and that I expect his systems to fail in the next days. I will feed him by force if that is needed to buy us more time. But then… I'm at a loss."

Wheeljack nodded slowly.  
"He has to accept. He is still struggling with his… abasement."

"But why only now? The child is three months old, the rape supposedly happened two months prior, so it's nearly half a year past now. Why does he decide to give up now?"

"Because he knows the child safe here" Wheeljack said gently. "He knows that we will care for it and that it is safe from Megatron here. But that gives us at least one handle. He does care for the child. No matter what he says, he wants it safe from harm."

"But he knows that it will die with him when he leaves! The little one needs him still!"

"Sure?"

With a sigh, Ratchet fell back into his seat.  
"No, of course not. I know, I know! I can and I will try to nourish him, you know that as well as I do. But it won't be pretty, serious, Wheeljack, when he really cares he can not condemn his child to having his d.u. manually cleaned up all two weeks or what. It will suffer!"

Wheeljack nodded. "We have to carefully make him know that. But he should not get the feeling that we want to blackmail him into living."

"But what? What can keep him here? I always thought about what was driving him before. I came to no real conclusion. Except to replace Megatron. That was what he lived for. And since he quite drastically told us that he doesn't want his place anymore, I can imagine that he feels lost now. So we will have to offer him something new. What could that be?"

"It's strange. I would never question my sense of living. Life is much too much fun to throw it away."

"Perhaps I should blow myself up more often to understand that" Ratchet muttered.

Giving him a sparky, friendly shove Wheeljack laughed. "Yes, perhaps."  
He looked intensely at the medic.  
"You, my grumpy medic, have a much too high responsibility to enjoy life as lightly as I do. But that doesn't mean that you can not love it, does it?"

Ratchet snorted and shook his head.  
"I never thought of killing myself. But I … I also can not really call me happy" he said before he could hold it back. He didn't want their talk to go into that direction at all! He preferred to keep his emotions to himself.  
The hand of the engineer, which had stayed rested on his shoulder after giving him the shove, stroked him lightly.  
Don't do that, Jack… he begged mentally.

"I'm afraid your job condemns you to suffer in a way. There will always be losses. And the twins will always return, always return, and one day you will not be able to bring them back from the dead and you will never forgive yourself, though it's not your fault. I know."

Nodding sadly, Ratchet had to admit that Wheeljack had just hit the nail on the head.

Still, the optics of the engineer were ablaze with the mirth and happiness Ratchet was so amazed to always find in him.

"But you know, Ratchet…" he continued, "… we all love our grumpy old medic. Exactly the way he is. And I'm deeply thankful for everything you do for me. Every time I blow myself up" he smirked.

Ratchet smiled awkwardly. He didn't like to be praised. But on the other hand, it was good to know that Wheeljack held him in such high esteem.  
"Thank you, Wheels. That's what I live for. To be there for you all."

To his great shock, that admission made Wheeljack jump up and embrace him tightly. "I know. And that's what makes you so adorable."

"Wheels, get off of me!" the medic complained embarrassed.

The engineer complied, though not immediately.

Flushed, Ratchet stammered: "Let's get back to the problem at hand. Starscream is dying."

"Yeah. He needs a new sense in life. I mean the child is really the first thing that comes to mind with that. I bet it is really fulfilling to raise a baby. And such an adorable one! And I really believe that he could love it. There are some obstacles in the way, but there are also hints at him wanting to cross them. We should first help with that.  
Obstacle one: He was raped and conceived against his will. Not erasable, he will have to live with that fact. And in a way it might even be helpful that he obviously accepted Megatron now as the stronger one. That means he's not so ashamed of being overwhelmed by him. I still remember how he said to me "who else could have raped me but my leader?" And that's true. Would someone else… like the Constructicons or so, have taken him, he would have died by shame. But I think shame is not so much the problem here. The problem is to face that he is weaker than he thought. Or at least he was at one point weaker than he thought. That's what's wrenching his spark, I think. He always was so sure that he was meant to be leader and that he would one day overwhelm Megatron. Nothing could get him off of that. But the rape. As he said himself, Megatron broke him. And with that he suddenly finds himself without that trait that he always relied on: To want that position and to overpower Megatron. At the moment, he doesn't want that anymore. And to be honest, Ratchet… though it might be fatal for us… I think the only thing that can keep him here is to reawaken that desire in him. That was what kept him burning. And now it is plus the child. When he manages to overthrow and perhaps even kill Megatron, his child will be able to grow without the constantly lurking danger posed by him.  
That might be a trigger realisation that could lure Starscream back into the living."

Ratchet nodded, though with a screwed face. "What would Prowl say to us raising our own worst enemy when we have the chance to just let him pass away!"

Wheeljack chuckled. "Let us preferably not tell him that. Slag, he has shift this night. That's not so good. I hope he doesn't give Starscream the final shove with one of his… sparky remarks."

"Um. Well. Alright, we agree on that course than? We try to make the prospect of killing Megatron to have his child grow in peace enticing to him."

"Revenge! Revenge would surely be a good idea."

"O Primus Wheeljack, we better let nobody know what we are scheming at the moment. It's unbelievable."

"Hehe. True."

The child struggled and whined, patting his father's chest. But Starscream didn't wake.

Finally Jazz rose and shook him lightly. "Starscream?"

Reluctantly, the ruby optics came online.

"Starscream, please wake up. You have been recharging for hours. Come, take a cube" he tried to take him by surprise and held an energon cube directly to his lips.  
But the seeker wouldn't let himself be tricked, as soon as his main computer had booted he turned his head away and clenched his lips shut.

Resigned, Jazz put the cube back on the table.  
He sat down on the edge of the berth. It broke his spark to see this once so proud mech shattered, lost and broken.  
Carefully he stroked Starscream's forearm. He received no reaction.  
"Water at least?"

Starscream sighed. Insistent Autobot! He in fact was horribly thirsty. But he wouldn't give in. Not when he was so close.  
He shook his head slightly.

Jazz was close to threatening Starscream with the prospect of being forced to drink and eat. But he knew that would only strengthen his wish to die.

"Do you mind when I play some music?" he asked.

No reaction.  
But at least no headshaking, either.  
So Jazz put his speakers online and had his music playing lowly.

The child immediately looked up, surprised, and stared at him wonderingly.

"Yeah, that's music, baby!" Jazz explained. "That's nice, isn't it?"

The baby looked his way, but continued molesting Starscream's chest. It was obviously hungry. So hungry that it even tried to take the lid of the intake into his mouth and sucked at it.

"Starscream… I know, but… please, feed it."

With pleasure, Starscream thought. It will weaken me further.  
Slowly, he turned around to his side and laid the baby down beside him at his chest. As soon as he had taken tube out it suckled greedily.

Starscream felt that his milk flow lessened. There were only about four litres taken from his systems, then his ducts were already empty. He pretended he would nurse the little one longer to not make Jazz suspicious. But unfortunately the baby soon began to wail unhappily when nothing came from the teat it was suckling at.  
Damn he had to find out if Ratchet would be able to nourish the baby. It would calm his consciousness before leaving.

"Aww, I love that song" Jazz suddenly said.

Happy for the distraction, Starscream listened up.  
"It's squishy music" he noticed with an edge of disdain in his voice.

"Human music. Yeah, they can make damn good music."

"You think so?" Starscream asked, surprised.

"Yes. Kay, they also produce a whole lot of absolute slag. But sometimes there are real treasures in between. This is one of those. You know, it's so... spontaneous. When we make really good music, it often means that we sit for many days, computing, until a perfection of harmonies comes out.  
I respect that. But I find it... dead. It's artificial. Great cybertronian musicians, like Coretrack or such... it's perfect music. I sometimes like it. But I never felt the fascination and love I have for human music."

The dark face of the seeker looked with greatest astonishment at him.

Jazz struggled to explain. "You know... there are some human musicians who do it likewise. They plan, they arrange, they use theory. Also they have made some great music. But sometimes... sometimes it's the guy who grabs his guitar, spontaneously plays some tunes and sings out what's on his mind... his soul, who just makes the best of all music. This is an example of that. You can feel this music. You don't shrink in awe of the greatness of perfection. But you feel with it. It's in tune with yourself. Because it's not perfect. It's like oneself. Unthinking. Direct. Illogical.  
I love the music that humans make with their... they call it with their heart, that's nonsense of course, but it seems most of their feelings locate in their heart, why ever. Let's say with their soul instead. They make it with their soul, without restraints and shame. And it goes right into my emotional centre, completely filling it, making it vibrate with emotions. It's wonderful."

Starscream nodded hesitatingly.  
"His voice is... weird."

Jazz smiled. "You think so? I think it just fits. That's also one point of that honesty. You might think the voice is strange and unfitting for singing. But he just does. And with his belief and confidence you hear that he loves it. And I love it with him."

Starscream smiled unhappily.  
The human singer had a voice similar to his own – high and screechy.

And he had to admit – he liked the song.


	6. 6 - Choke

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby, but I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" , but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**Other warnings: Suicidal thoughts**

**6 Choke**

In the late evening Prowl came to replace Jazz.

The second in command was unhappy.  
Except for the talk they had about music he had not managed to get in contact with Starscream at all. Not to mention make him drink and eat.  
The child was whiny, probably hungry. And now it was exactly Prowl who had the next shift.

When the tactician stood in front of him, looking straight into his optics, unmoving, Jazz frantically thought of something that would make him understand.  
After a klik he gave up without saying anything.

He gave Starscream a pat to the chassis and fondled the baby for a moment for good-bye. Then he left, spark aching.

Prowl's gaze raked over their prisoner.  
He had keen senses of observation. It was necessary to be able to estimate a situation right.  
Those senses told him that Starscream's body was too cold, too still, and too silent. The engines were only humming on low revs, the fans were near to still.  
He had a bad feeling about this.

The child stared expectantly at him, squawking unhappily. But by all means he had no idea what to do with it.  
He marched over to the desk, logged in on the terminal and began working on his reports.  
Which nobody would read anyway, as he knew, but for himself to feel that he had done what he could.

Jazz dashed into the medbay.  
"Ratchet! Wheeljack!"

"Both here."

Jazz flung himself on a chair.  
"What are we gonna do? He's growing weaker with every breem!"

The medic and the engineer looked at each other.

"We... agreed on a course there, Jazz..." Wheeljack explained and they sat down together to exchange their thoughts.

* * *

Starscream was woken from his useless recharge by a stabbing pain in the chest.  
He coughed in shock. It was a throttling feeling of tightness in his right chest, like a black hole sucking everything in so empty was it.  
Quickly he made a system check.  
He ran out of fuel... His engine was choking with the lack.  
Finally.  
Now it would be over soon.  
Strangely, he felt no bit of regret.  
He was ready to leave. There was nothing anymore in life he wanted, nothing he found worthy to live for. He felt terribly exhausted and all he wanted was to just send his body into eternal rest.

Prowl's optics turned sidewards, observing the seeker.  
The sleeping mech had suddenly convulsed in a coughing fit.  
There were only two reasons making a mech cough. First foreign particles sticking in the central cooling pipe or an infection, what was about impossible to happen when Starscream was just lying around in a clean room. And second...  
A choking engine, either caused by a defect in the engine itself or lack of fuel.  
The main engines, of which every mech had at least a pair, provided the body with warmth, drove some central pumps and hydraulics and, most importantly, recharged the batteries, which were powering the whole electric system of a mech.

As far as Prowl knew when the engine died a mech had about five to twenty cycles to live without it. Depending on the situation of the batteries. And he could guess that the charge condition of Starscream's batteries wasn't the best.

The seeker calmed down after some microkliks and offlined his optics again, obviously unconcerned about his state.

Prowl decided to wait if this would reoccur before he alarmed someone. Perhaps it was just an accident.

Alert, he resumed writing his reports.  
Starscream stayed calm for over a breem and Prowl just began to relax when suddenly again the silence was broken by choked coughing of the seeker.

Starscream tried to calm down, tried to suppress the coughing, but the pain was so strong and strangling that he couldn't really help it.  
Damn it!

"Starscream" Prowl said and it sounded more like a statement.  
"You have to take energon."  
He was ignored.  
"The likelihood of you being able to die here is 3,7%" he informed Starscream.

The seeker let out a huff. "I wonder why you don't commit suicide."

"Why is it you wonder? Because you guess it must be a miserable life with ten emotional circuits only? You're wrong. I'm content. At least my emotional circuits don't load me with useless misery that drives me to kill myself without any logical reason."

Starscream again went for just ignoring the Autobot.

But the coughing fits returned and he felt Prowl's cold blue optics on him.

"Is it your engine?" the tactician asked.

For a moment Starscream thought about what he might answer that would keep Prowl from calling Ratchet.  
But he believed it would be pretty difficult to fool the highly intelligent tactician.

"Prowl" he croaked. "Just leave me."

For quite a while the tactician obviously thought, hard. Hope welled up in Starscream. Perhaps to have Prowl have this shift was the best thing that could happen to him... he was the least likely to "help" him. And the most likely to be convincible of letting him die.

But then to his disappointment the tactician shook his head.  
"No. I will call Ratchet."

"No, wait! Wait." Damn it, just in that moment his engine spluttered again and he coughed, hard.  
The tactician already turned to the computer terminal to call for the medic.  
"No, Prowl! Look... it would be so easy... just tell them I have made no noises. Just tell them I was so silent that you didn't realise I was passing out. And by tomorrow you will finally got rid of me. Isn't that a chance? You don't even have to move a finger to solve one of your biggest problems."

Again the officer thought. Starscream felt that he was on the edge. Very close to giving in and allowing him to leave.

"But what's it with the child?" Prowl asked.

"He will make it" Starscream croaked weakly. "Ratchet will be able to feed him artificially" Starscream tried to resolve his doubts.

Again severe computing. Starscream had to grin about the fans in Prowl's forehead tuning up with having to cool his central processor.

"No way, when they find you dead tomorrow, they will not believe I didn't notice."

"But... but... you can surely come up with an excuse! Come, use that immense computing power of yours to make something up that will convince them. I mean, you don't have to wait until shift changes and then pretend you haven't realised you guarded a corpse all night. Wait for my spark to fade out and then immediately call Ratchet, telling him I just suddenly passed out. But unfortunately unfortunately Ratchet will be too late to bring me back."  
Starscream broke out into a sparkwrenching coughing fit when now also his left engine began choking on the last amounts of fuel left.

Prowl considered that seriously.  
His logic processors could come up with nothing to convince Starscream to take energon. In fact there was no reason for him to live in Prowl's opinion. But for some nebulous reason, located somewhere in their emotional centres, Ratchet, Jazz and even Wheeljack seemed to think that Starscream had to live, even when he didn't want it himself.  
Though his own desire was to comply in Starscream's wishes and just let him leave, indeed solving one of his most pressing problems at the moment, he knew he would have an even bigger problem with the other Autobots afterwards.

He turned to the terminal and wrote a message to Ratchet.

Ratchet woke from recharge from an urgent message having come in.  
With a sigh he heaved himself up in his berth to wake.

Prowl: Starscream is coughing, I guess with lack of fuel. I could not come up with a logical reason for him to take up energon. What is your suggestion for a course of action?

"No logic reason to survive... oh Prowl" Ratchet sighed. Rubbing his brow, feeling a massive heat coming up in his central processor, Ratchet thought, hard.  
Out of time already.

Ratchet: Listen for his engines. Can you make out their sound? It's probably the only sound he currently makes except for the fans.

After a pause, Prowl wrote back:  
I think I made them out, yes. It's a lighter, quicker sound than for example mine.

Ratchet: Yes, exactly. Are they both running?

Prowl: Yes, both running.

Ratchet: Good. Tell me immediately should one of them die out. I have to think.

Prowl: Understood.

Ratchet checked his clock. Four in the morning.  
He decided they had to talk to Prime about this. He needed to know.

Starscream's hands clawed on his chest.  
Primus, this hurt!  
Why could it not just be over in an instant?  
But this seemed to take longer than he wanted. And still he didn't know what Prowl had done at the computer terminal. Without explanation the tactician had ended their conversation. So far no medic had shown up, but that didn't necessarily mean that they would grant him his death now.

With the time he had learned how to breathe out the coughing, making it sound less horrible, but not easier to stand for him.  
His engines were screaming at him to do something. The right one had even died out for a klik or so just a moment ago, but had restarted again, though choking.  
Damn thing.  
Starscream checked his charge state.  
12%.  
That was darn low. Perhaps he had a chance. When his engines died, he would be down within a cycle he guessed, with all his system being close to shutdown without any more resources.  
When another wave of choking rippled through his engines, he tried to tune up his fans to make it less likely that Prowl would notice when one of the engines died. But he didn't manage, his automatic self-protecting systems would not allow him to tune the fans up due to his body being much too cool already.  
He coughed miserably.

To his surprise the child was lying utterly calm on his chest.  
He knew the little one was awake, he saw the light of his optics reflecting off his chassis. But the child didn't make a sound or move.  
Ready to go down with me, aren't you? He thought sadly.  
But you won't. Ratchet will keep you alive. I'm sorry for what I bring over you. But here, with the Autobots, you will be safe. Jazz will be a good new daddy for you and Wheeljack will always play with you if you feel like it. Look forward, child, everything's gonna be fine when I'm gone.

"Not comfortable, uh?" Prowl suddenly asked when he had another bad coughing fit.

A wry smile curled Starscream's lips.  
"Not at all. Could have imagined better ways to die. But since you leave me no other choice..."

"You know, Starscream... I would have let you go. But unfortunately it's not alone up to me to decide here."

In the next moment the door opened and Ratchet came in.

* * *

Jazz couldn't recharge.  
Dawn was just sending the first warm rays of light of the beautiful earth sun across the horizon when he got up from his berth.

Somehow he had a bad feeling in his spark and headed right for the Ambassador's.

He didn't heed to announce himself, just punched in the codes and came in.

In shock, he froze in the doorframe when he saw Ratchet standing bowed over the motionless seeker.  
Prowl sat on his chair, observing them, with a cold, unmoving face.

"What's going on?" Jazz asked, fear in his voice. Starscream was scarily quiet and cold.

Ratchet stood back up.  
"I just asked Starscream for his status, but he refuses to give. And I can not righteously force him to give it, that would be a breach of personal rights. Now it has to work like this."

"What?"

"I called up Prime for an urgent briefing. He wants Starscream to attend. Prime's waiting in the line in the small conference room." Ratchet picked the strangely still child up and stuck it into Jazz' arms.  
"Come, Starscream." The medic gave the seeker help to rise.

It gave Jazz the creeps to watch him. The mighty Decepticon warrior was slow with lack of energy, his hands sometimes just slipped off of Ratchet, where they should hold to, his face was still and empty. His body was icy cold, nearly invisible.

"Starscream, just one little cube to power you up for the briefing?" he begged and held out a cube of energon to the seeker. But he was just plainly ignored.

Prowl removed the chain from the hook in the wall and secured it around his waist again.  
Ratchet was supporting Starscream strongly when they made for the door.

Slowly they walked down the corridor.

Starscream adjured himself to hold on as long as possible. By now the Autobots didn't know how badly he was weakened already. And the walk would probably give him the rest he needed to make his system give in. He just had to pretend he was coping as well as he could.  
So he dragged himself forwards, collecting energy from every resource he had.

The environment became hazy around him when they had reached the stairs and were going down. Everything passed him without his receptors realising, for there was not enough energy left to supply them.  
Bit by bit the peripheral parts of his system were shut down while insistent warning signals bombarded him about it.  
Shut the slag up, he thought, I know that all.  
Again his engine spluttered, making him wince, but he could with difficulties hold back the cough.  
Oh gods it hurt.  
The floor suddenly seemed too soft, as if he could sink into it...  
Another warning flashed when the energy level of his batteries fell below 10%.  
Soon...

"Ratchet!" called Jazz, "He's much too cold, more and more parts of him fall to surrounding temperature!"

The medic turned his optics at the seeker to estimate his status just to see how his optics offlined and suddenly all his weight dragged him down.

Starscream hadn't even the power left to cry out when his right engine finally died down.  
A feeling as if an evacuation would compress his chassis, sucking it in from the inside, made him gasp and finally his legs gave in.  
Give up, give up! He begged his spark.  
His central cooling pipe only managed breathless gasps in an attempt to make up for the fans which had no more power left to cool the sparkchamber.  
Oh gods he just wished it was over.

Ratchet called out in shock when the seeker collapsed beside him, and he couldn't keep the heavy flyer from banging against the wall pretty hard.  
Prowl was dragged against him by the chain and they could only catch themselves in the last moment from falling onto their prisoner.

"Slag it!" Ratchet cursed, ripped out the status checker and connected it to the slot under Starscream's helmet rim.  
What it told him made his spark grow cold.

"Medbay, NOW!" he called out and grabbed the seeker, threw him over his shoulder and marched off, pulling Prowl after him.

Jazz immediately followed and ran up to Ratchet, supporting the dangling feet of the seeker to get some weight off the heavily loaded medic.

Starscream only faintly registered when he was lifted and carried away.  
He was deathly sick.  
So soon...  
But his treacherous engine would not let him leave so easily. The slagging thing tried a restart and after having paused for a klik so much fuel had gathered in the tubes that it managed and started anew only to choke and fight with the little amount of gas it had. But the failed restarts ate a lot of electrical energy at least.  
9% in the batteries... so soon!

Autobots were staring at them when they crossed right through the Ark with Ratchet struggling to carry a motionless seeker and Jazz with a strange little thing on his arm. Prowl thanked Primus that it was so early in the day – they only met Smokescreen and Sideswipe, coming from a patrol.

"Wheeljack! Wheels!" Ratchet called as soon as they had entered the medbay.  
He set the seeker down on the treating table and at first connected sensors to his status check systems to monitor him.

Jazz shrank bank when he saw the values appear on a screen beside the table.  
Batteries down to 8.6%! Fuel gone to 1%! Status critical!  
"Primus help!" he gasped.

Wheeljack came running from his lab only some microkliks after Ratchet had called him.

"Energy! Quickly!" Ratchet told him while he was preparing a d.u. tube.

Without a microklik of hesitation, Wheeljack opened Starscream's cockpit and bared the connections. Then he quickly fetched the needed cables and clamped them on, powering the Decepticon's body electronically and beginning the recharge of the desperately low batteries.

Starscream felt the energy soar into him.  
"No" he breathed.  
Don't let them ruin my only chance!

He felt Ratchet grabbing his head and something touched his lips. He immediately gritted his dental bands, denying access to his d.u.'s pipeline.

"Slag it, Starscream!" he heard the medic's agitated voice, "You will live, I will see to that, stop fighting!"

"See to it if you can" Starscream grumbled through clenched dentals.

"Wheeljack, need help here! Hold him steady!" Ratchet commanded while he produced a lever.  
They had no time to be picky.

Jazz observed, paralysed with shock and fear, how Wheeljack grabbed Starscream's head and held him down tightly while Ratchet forced two levers between his dental bands and stemmed them open.  
The seeker gave an angry growl and his hands flew up in an attempt to get the medic off of him, but he was far too weak, after a short jerk his arms fell back down to the table.  
"Leave me!" he screeched, "Leave me alone!"

"No" Ratchet just stated and tried to insert the tube into his mouth, but Starscream pressed his glossa up to his mouth's roof and Ratchet couldn't get past it.

Stressed, Ratchet looked to the side, thinking how he could force him quickly.

"You can not deny me my wish to die!" Starscream demanded, fighting to speak despite the levers holding his jaws apart. Ratchet ignored him.  
"You're playing god!" Starscream accused him.

"In my medbay" the medic grumbled, "I AM god."  
Annoyed and in a hurry, he picked up a hook, inserted it into Starscream's mouth and forced his glossa down.  
It made the seeker gag violently and in that moment Ratchet drove the tube in, managing to get it past dentals and glossa.  
Quickly, he pushed it further down, forcing it through Starscream's throat.

The weakened body bucked in a try to defend himself, he retched and gurgling noises came from him when the tube was shoved down into his d.u.  
"Ngooo! Ngooo!" he screeched.

Ratchet taped the levers and the tube to his helmet to keep them steady, totally ignoring his weak attempts of defence.

Then he quickly started a pump that made high grade energon go down through the tube into the starving d.u.

Desperate, Starscream tried to retch the tube out, but due to the tape it didn't move.  
No! It's couldn't be! He was so close already! So close!

The little one stared at what was happening with his father.  
Confused, he turned at Jazz.  
"Ada?"

Jazz had totally forgotten the child and quickly turned away from the treating table and the gruesome sight of his father.  
"Hush. Ada's gonna make it" he tried to soothe it.

To his surprise Starscream obviously heard him and croaked:  
"I'm not living to be a milk bar!"

Hurt, Jazz turned to him.  
"You live to protect him from Megatron" he cried.

The seeker had another coughing fit when all of a sudden both of his engines died at once when finally the last drop of fuel was used up.  
At last! Now he only had to make the batteries fail before the energon was processed by his d.u. ... so close...  
He adjured his hand to follow his orders for a last time, and while Ratchet was occupied with preparing an iv and Wheeljack readied an external fuel pump he lashed out and ripped the cables feeding him electricity from his chest.

With a loud clang of a short circuit they went down to the floor after hitting the table.  
Starscream had received a jab that immobilised his right side. But within only a microklik his energy status began to fall again while it had stabilised before.  
"Go down, go down!" he begged.  
He heard Ratchet curse and Wheeljack fight with the cables to get them back on.  
Quickly! How could he use up more energy in short time?  
The turbine! The left turbine wasn't blocked!

Determined, he started it, no matter what his systems screamed at him.

"Oh slag!" Ratchet screamed when he heard the turbine tune up while he was just boring the needle of the iv into a vein in Starscream's upper arm.  
"Oh no, you're not!" He called out, let everything fall, rushed for the seeker's leg and without a second thought rammed his wrench into the running turbine.  
With a screech and clattering of breaking blades it came to halt.

Starscream jerked hard when his turbine was blocked painfully.  
But it was enough. It was done. His batteries all gave last warning beeps, then they collapsed in deep discharge and he blacked out.

The monitors gave flashing warnings about total system failure.  
They all heard a well audible, feared sound. A strong "click" when the emergency shutdown set in, disconnecting the spark from the failing body to protect it from harm.


	7. 7 - Leave

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby, but I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" , but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**Other warnings: Suicidal thoughts**

**7 Leave**

Jazz observed, spark icy cold, how the seeker fell limply down to the table, optics offline and all fans spun out. With his engines dead, there was no more sound coming from him and Jazz saw through his heat cam how the temperature in his head fell within microkliks, his core temperature following, slower but steadily.

Ratchet excessively cursing didn't bode well...

"Wheeljack, new batteries! God damn it, need help here, get Perceptor! Hurry!" Ratchet ripped Starscream's cockpit lid off to get to the central circuits and carefully connected them manually with external current.  
Nothing happened, Starscream's systems did not reboot.

Prowl hurried to radio Perceptor.  
The scientist answered grumpily, being called out of recharge.  
"Prowl here, Perceptor to the medbay, immediately!" the officer ordered.  
Then he picked up the line to Optimus.

"Prime?"

"Got you, Prowl, what's up? I was waiting..."

"We're in the medbay, Prime" Prowl explained, "Starscream collapsed, I think his status is dire. I will call back on you when things clear up here."

"Oh alright. I assume Ratchet is doing what he can?"

"Positive."

"Good."

"Prowl out."

He observed sharply what was happening. It nearly looked as if Starscream got what he wanted after all.  
Ratchet was fighting with trying to get his systems back online but didn't succeed as far as he could tell. Wheeljack just came running with two new batteries and began disassembling Starscream's chassis to get to replace them.

Only after half a klik Perceptor stumbled in.  
"What is going on?"

"Hurry, Percy, new batteries!" Wheeljack instructed him, "Starscream had a deep discharge and is out."

"Oh!" After a microklik of processing the situation, Perceptor jumped to join Wheeljack in his effort to equip the ill mech with new batteries.

Jazz' spark was throbbing coldly with fear and agitation.  
It could not be! They had expected it coming, why had they not been able to avoid it! It was impossible that Starscream just died now!

When he had supplied all vital circuitry with external energy and there was still not the slightest reaction from Starscream, Ratchet removed enough armour to get to the sparkchamber and carefully opened it.

"Thank Primus" he sighed when a weak glow greeted him. At least it was still there...  
He very carefully attached electrodes to the sparkchamber to observe it.  
The life-energy was low, but not yet critically so.

"The batteries, hurry!" He urged his assistants on and himself took the iv back up to place it.  
An analysis showed him that the blood of the seeker was practically empty – first the pressure was down to no good and second it was nearly clean oil running through his veins, doing nothing to supply his systems with other matter.  
He had to get conserves, and fast.  
Without much ado he inserted the iv that had just fallen out. The little dirt he might inject into the vein was no danger in comparison to the time which was quickly running out.

Since the armour was off anyway, he shortly checked on the d.u. and found it wasn't even running.  
Cursing, he manually connected it with electricity, but even when he had done that, it still made no move.

"How many batteries?" Ratchet asked, voice raw with agitation.

"Just two so far!" Wheeljack called while he was struggling with getting another battery out. "He's in a terrible maintenance state, most screws are stuck with dirt!"  
The seeker had eight batteries in whole. In emergency three were enough to give life support power.

Ratchet hurried to help with the batteries, that was the first they had to do now.  
"As soon as three batteries are in we have to try reboot" he explained, drilling out screws with routine and picking the old, broken battery in Starscream's flank out.  
"Percy take over here!" he said when he had removed the battery, seeing the scientist fighting with another battery he obviously couldn't get out so easily.  
He complied quickly and Ratchet checked on the spark and touched important circuitry to see if there was any dangerous current running. He found one in the left side and disconnected the broken batteries there. Then he checked the fuses and put the blown ones back in. After that he believed everything should be ready for reboot.

"Ready!" Percy called out when he had attached his battery. "Three batteries running!"

"Step back!" Ratchet called and slid his hand into Starscream's upper chest.  
It was only one knob which turned around 90° to disconnect the spark in emergency shutdown.  
His own fans humming with fear, Ratchet turned it determined, reconnecting Starscream's body to the spark.

Nothing happened. After five microkliks the knob automatically turned back into shutdown position, indicating that the spark did not receive supply.

Ratchet let out a huff of air he had held in agitation.  
"More batteries in! Damnit!"

Immediately Perceptor and Wheeljack jumped back to work.

Ratchet ran for the monitor and scanned the system check.  
The status was horrible, but he didn't really see a reason why the reboot wouldn't work.  
The blood pump was slowly exchanging the fluid in Starscream's veins with real blood. The charge state became better with every battery his assistants installed. The last status check that had been registered microkliks before the shutdown showed no serious harm was done to vital systems by the deep discharge.  
Starscream should be able to reboot!

When Wheeljack and Perceptor had placed another pair of batteries, giving the sum of five, Ratchet announced to give it a second try.  
Again he grabbed the knob and turned it.  
They heard a very faint electrical humming, but it only showed that the current to the batteries was open. Otherwise nothing happened – except for the knob again turning back after some microkliks.

"SLAG IT!" Ratchet cursed and ran to prepare the cables for a forced reboot.

At the door Sideswipe and Sunstreaker stood, observing in awe and fear.  
"What the pit is going on?" Sunstreaker asked his brother. But he could only shake his head. "No idea. Just saw them running for the medbay with a halfway unconscious Starscream. And serious, bro... this doesn't look good."

Ratchet checked the fuses and found them all still on.  
Determined, he clamped the cables for the forced reboot into the necessary spots. It were eight in whole, and when switched on they would cause a crossfire of current to go through the whole central systems to try to get them back to work.  
Two went to the forehead, two into the shoulders, two into the chest and two into the hips.

Though time was pressing, Ratchet checked every condition critical for this action twice together with both his assistants.  
If he made a mistake now, it might be he destroyed Starscream completely.

When the checks were done, he called out: "Everyone step back! Nobody touches him or the table! Get off!"  
Then he grabbed back into his chest, set the emergency shutoff knob into normal position, jumped back and pulled the lever of the rebooting machine.

A deep electrical humming sounded and Starscream's body bucked under the onslaught of 5000 V. The ruby optics lit up, but Jazz knew that it was only because of his whole body being soared through with current, not because he was necessarily awaking.

"Come on, Starscream!" he begged, "Come back! Come back!"

After two microkliks the machine automatically stopped the current and the seeker's body collapsed back to the table motionless.

Ratchet counted to five. That was when the feared click came again, the knob was back in off position. The medic let out another sparky curse.

He pulled another lever, grounding the lifeless mech to be able to touch him again after this.

Some fuses had blown and he put them back in. Again all three of them checked every status – but failed to find something that would keep the seeker from rebooting.  
In desperation, Ratchet even replaced some of his RAM and conscious flash memory for the case it was damaged.  
He looked up at Perceptor and Wheeljack for confirmation. "Another try?"

The two nodded, though both their faces were grim.

So Ratchet turned the knob for the fourth time.  
"Come on, Starscream, come on!" he tried to adjure him – and pulled the lever.

Jazz winced back when the threatening electrical sound occurred again and the halfway disassembled body of Starscream arched.  
It looked as if he was in immense pain, but Jazz tried to tell himself that he didn't feel anything.  
"Please, please!" he begged, clutching the child in his arms.

The shock was stopped after another two microkliks – leaving the body of the mech lax, depolarised and ready for reboot.  
But again he lay still and lifeless and after another two microkliks they heard the click of the emergency shutdown knob going back into off position.

Jazz saw how Ratchet's shoulder slumped in defeat.  
"No" he whispered. "It cannot be. It cannot be!"

"More batteries" Ratchet ordered, not willing to give up already.  
All three medical educated Autobots hurried to put in the last three missing batteries.  
Ratchet exchanged some blown fuses and even some vitally important cables, though it was unlikely that they had been damaged.

Back at the door, Sunstreaker whispered:  
"He never knows when to stop."  
His twin nodded absently.

Ratchet was the first who had finished his work and while Wheeljack and Perceptor were attaching the last two batteries, he threw water into his face, trying to cool his glowing central processors.  
This was not at all as he had wanted things to go.

When turning, he to his anger saw both twins crouching at the door, staring at them, and waved angrily at them to get lost.  
They ducked behind the doorframe, but somehow he knew that their heads would pop back as soon as he turned his back on them.  
But he couldn't care for that now.

His central processors back in ideal operational temperature, he tried to look fresh and newly at his patient to find the cause that kept his system from rebooting.  
But no matter how hard he thought, he found none.

A gaze at the monitor told him that the spark of the seeker was still alive, but unusually distressed. The signal should be a rather regular, calm curve, but it was a chaotic zig-zag-line with high peaks and deep lows.  
He could not tell what it meant. He had no advanced education in reading spark patterns.

For a good klik the three medical educated Autobots stood gathered around the lifeless, half bare mech.

Wheeljack shook his head. "No idea" he said, voicing what they all thought.  
Ratchet pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to come up with something. But it was useless.  
"One last try" he announced. "I will hold the current for a little longer." The others nodded and stepped back from the table.

"Come on, Starscream" Ratchet muttered, turned the knob, quickly pulled his hand away and set the lever.

A strong jerk ran through the still body, they heard how the current flooded his system with a deep hum and electric sizzling.  
Blue hands clawed at the air, ruby optics ablaze. All fans got a nudge and tuned up to quickest spinning, but suddenly it was over.  
Four microkliks had passed this time until the machine stopped the current. It was close to singing all circuits, a desperate measure.  
Excited, they all waited for something to happen.  
But the hands fell back down to the table, the optics went dark and the fans just spun out.  
Silence.  
Click.

Jazz gasped. A biting cold was crawling in on him from the outside towards his spark.  
Terror. A desperate fear. He had the desire to grab the time and push it back, to undo what had happened. It was incomprehensible that one of them, one of the few transformers still existing actually died!  
Though they were enemies, they had known each other for nearly all their lives. They had bantered, they had attacked, yes they had tried to kill each other and they were serious about it. But suddenly Jazz noticed how bad it felt when he imagined Starscream actually missing from their world.  
The second in command of the Decepticons was a pivotal element of their little split society - what would happen if he suddenly was gone? Everything would change dramatically.  
Jazz hated changes, and when he imagined their future without the screechy seeker it looked terrifyingly different. The command chain, the whole behaviour of the Decepticons would surely change. Who knew what Megatron would do without Starscream as his balancing and, truth be told, punching bag?  
The cold neared his spark and finally grabbed it. No. NO! He didn't want that! Starscream belonged to their group, no matter if Decepticon or not, he was still a transformer!

Ratchet slumped into a seat, shaking his head slowly while rubbing his brow.

"You can not give up..." Jazz whispered.

"Then pray tell me Jazz, when should I give up if not now?" Ratchet said, voice hoarse. "His system is ready. It should reboot. But it doesn't. At the moment, nothing comes to my mind that could improve the situation."

Desperate, Jazz looked at Perceptor, but the scientist also shook his head. He pointed at the chaotic curve of the spark.  
"Something is very wrong there."

Jazz gasped. "No! It can not be! It can not be so easy to just die!"

"Easy? I think that was all but easy."

"We were too late! How could we be too late?!"

"I never expected his batteries to be so low" Ratchet muttered. Wheeljack felt that he was accusing himself and went over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing it.

"None of us did. And he could have been rescued – if he had not been so determined. He started his turbine with his batteries at 8%! It was inevitable that he would have a deep discharge after that. It's not our fault. He wanted it."

"But... no... noooo" Jazz croaked. By all means, he couldn't grab it, it was impossible that the proud, strong second in command of the Decepticons just killed himself!  
"I failed him!" he wailed, feeling miserable. "I told you to not force him earlier, but I couldn't help him..."

"Hush, hush!" Ratchet interrupted. "It was my task to estimate how serious the situation was. Don't think that I would just follow your bidding without standing behind it myself. Jazz, seriously, you shouldn't load yourself with that accuse..."

"Useless!" Wheeljack suddenly claimed. "Nobody has a fault in this. We all did all what we could do. And it was not enough to keep a life-weary bot in this world. Period. There are no accuses on anybody here."

"Ada?"

"Oh noes." Jazz pressed the child to his chest. What should he say?  
"Hush, little one. We haven't given up yet. Hold on."  
He turned around, not able to bear looking at the seeker any longer, having to observe how his body grew cold.  
Desperate himself, he rocked the child and began singing.

Ratchet took a deep breath and turned to the desk.  
"Alright. My proposal for a course of action: We give him half an hour and see how the spark's energy curve behaves. Should it smooth out, we try it again. Should it weaken, we try it again. Meanwhile, I would like you two to accompany me with trying to find a way to nourish the little one. I guess he is already very hungry now."

Prowl stood up. "I will talk with Prime to explain the situation to him."  
With that he left.  
Outside he just saw the twins running around the corner of the corridor.  
He immediately radioed them.  
"Nothing of what you have seen goes to the outside!" he growled menacingly.

"Understood."

He knew them too well to really believe them.

* * *

"The little one... is he Starscream's son?" Perceptor asked insecurely.

Ratchet nodded. "Yepp. He was feeding him, and since a baby mech isn't able to handle tainted sustenance but needs a whole lot of highly concentrated matter, we have to develop something similar to the milk Starscream produced."  
The medic stood up and gently pulled the feeding tube out of its hatch. He could extract a small sample of the milk.  
"I can guess that it has not the right composition now, either, since he was so low on everything. But it will at least give us a hint. Perceptor?" He gave the sample to the scientist, who received it with a nod.  
"We have much work" sighed Ratchet.

* * *

Prowl went to his bureau to sort out his thoughts before he contacted Prime.  
In short he had to tell Prime that it seemed that Starscream successfully committed suicide through starvation and deep discharge and their medic and his two capable assistants hadn't been able to keep him stabile when the situation became dire.  
Despite the fact that this solved his problem without rising new ones, Prowl couldn't really feel content. It felt wrong that the broken Decepticon died in their care.  
And now they were stuck with Megatron's baby here!

Resigned, he called Optimus Prime up.  
Their leader immediately received his call.  
"Prowl?"

"I have news, Prime, do you have a bit of time?"

"I can take it. Give me a klik, I will call back on you."

"Ok, Prowl out."

While waiting for Prime calling, Prowl tried to compute how he should break the news to him to get the best possible outcome.  
It wasn't really satisfying. There was no good way.

Finally he received a transmission.

"Prowl in."

"It's me" said Optimus. "I'm free to talk now. How is the situation?"

"To begin with: Starscream intentionally refused every form of sustenance during the last six days of his imprisonment. Yesterday he was pretty weak, but none of us thought it would be so dire already.  
This morning I called Ratchet for I had the feeling that Starscream's status was growing worse, but when Ratchet arrived Starscream denied him his status, therefore Ratchet couldn't know how bad he really was. So we tried to go to the conference room, but on the way Starscream collapsed.  
Then Ratchet took his status by force and immediately ordered us to the medbay.  
They have fought for his life for the last three breems now, giving him all possible external energy, but he still fought against them and his batteries were desperately low.  
When the medics were managing to reenergise him, he started his left turbine, which was not blocked. That drew the last bit of energy out of his batteries and resulted in emergency shutdown.  
Since then they have replaced several batteries, boards and circuits. They tried twice to have him reboot on his own and when that did not work they gave three tries for a forced reboot. With no outcome.  
His spark is still alive, it gives a strange chaotic energy curve. But it doesn't reconnect with his body.  
They give it a pause now, instead trying to find a way to feed the baby. Ratchet will try another forced reboot when the spark grows worse or better."

Prime had listened silently. When Prowl had ended his report, he had to process all that information for quite a while.  
It was difficult to believe that one of their worst enemies had just committed suicide right under their optics.  
"That's bad news indeed" he said with his deep, sonorous voice. "Is there a chance that he will live?"

"I can make no assumption about that. From my impression alone I would say there is a minimal chance. As long as his spark still has energy, he can not be called dead. But since the medics are obviously unable to reconnect him with his body – it will probably only be a temporary delay of his death."

On the other side of the line, Optimus Prime rubbed his helmet strongly. "Thank you, Prowl. Please tell Ratchet that I would like him to call me up when he has some kliks for me. But it's not necessary now. Only when he has the time."

"I will."

"Prowl... how is Jazz coping?"

Taken by surprise, Prowl hesitated. Privately he thought that the behaviour of the second in command was just impossible. But Prime would surely not want to hear that.  
"He seems to be... very fond of our prisoner" he tried to voice it carefully. "He was pretty shocked when the medics gave up on him now. If I may say so, Prime... I think that Jazz is too emotionally involved in the situation to be left in control of it."

"Well... since Starscream is offline by now, there is no more situation to control. I will talk with Ratchet about it. Thank you, Prowl. I want you just to keep an optic on the security. Watch out for the Decepticons. Nobody knows how Megatron reacts should he gain news of this. Perhaps he will try to snatch his son away now to prevent him being raised by Autobots. So try to keep the news secret."

"Impossible. The twins know it. And Smokescreen halfways. We met them in the hall, and when Ratchet fought for Starscream's life in the medbay, the twins stood watching at the door."

"That's bad. Try it anyway. And have Blaster observe the radio closely for Decepticon activities concerning this."

"I will. Prowl out."

* * *

Jazz stood over the seeker and watched, horrified, how he faded from his vision with cooling out.  
To convince himself that he was still there, he stretched his hands out and touched him.  
Cold metal.  
Cold, lifeless metal. The corpse of a dead mech, not the slightest move, not a bit of current in it.  
He felt as if his spark would burst.  
Slowly his hands slid over the chassis Wheeljack had put back on to cover the fragile inner parts from harm and dust.  
His fingers traced the edges of the intakes and slid up the long neck to the face.  
No move of defence greeted him when he examined the seeker's face with his nimble fingers.  
Traced the outlines, the high cheekframe, the short nose, the huge optics, the heavy brow.  
Throwing a glance over his shoulder he ensured that he was not watched when his thumbs slid over the soft, cold lips.  
It was so wrong that they were cold. And that no air came from the slightly open mouth from the central cooling pipe.  
His touch left warm marks on the facial dermaplates he knew to be dark anthracite.  
He couldn't really tell why it moved him so deeply that he was gone. Theoretically he should hate him, the Decepticon, the mortal enemy.  
But all what had happened to him... the rape, the painful birth, the capture and imprisonment... life had been hell for the second in command of the Decepticons. Jazz felt pity for him. Felt the chance to change him also. To take him with him to a better place.  
He so wished Starscream had tried to change sides. To find a new life here at the Ark. To savour life. Yes, Jazz had wanted to teach him how to savour life like he did. Not only be driven by megalomania, by the desire for power and the wish to dominate others.  
And of course he had wished to help someone else from the fate he had suffered. Wanted to help like Ratchet and Wheeljack had helped him back then.  
They had managed, he had not. What had gone wrong?  
It probably was selfish of him to want the seeker to turn and he deserved to suffer from the loss he felt.  
His failure.  
He went down to his knees and rested his forehead against the edge of the treating table, his systems shaken by grief.

* * *

Prowl marched up to the twins' room. To improve the chance that they would keep their mouths shut he deemed it best to show up there personally and have his intimidating appearance help.

He pushed a button at their door activating a microphone and said: "It's Prowl, let me in immediately."

Immediately was seven microkliks later, what was much too much for Prowl's taste.

Sideswipe opened the door and tried to look merry and normal.  
"Oh hi Prowl!"

A gaze into the room told Prowl that Sunstreaker and Smokescreen were sitting inside at the computer terminal. Perfect, all those together who knew of the situation.  
He pressed past the red lambo and waved at him to close the door.

"I need to have a serious talk with you" he announced.

Sideswipe returned to stand behind his twin, looking as if he was searching cover.  
They all looked at Prowl expectantly.

"What have you seen?" he asked and first looked at Smokescreen.

"I saw you coming along the corridor, Ratchet carried an obviously weakened Starscream and Jazz carried some very small robot. You made for the medbay. That's all I have seen."

Prowl turned to Sideswipe.

"Well, I have naturally seen the same" he said, "Since we stood side by side."

"And?"

"And then... well then I told Sunstreaker what I have seen. Also quite naturally, he's my twin. He knows everything that I know."

"And then?"

"Then we went to the medbay to see what's going on."

"And what was going on?"

The twins opted for honesty, knowing that Prowl would get them for it should they try to lie.

"Well... Starscream was obviously in a bad condition. His whole upper chassis was off, cables stuck everywhere in him and Ratchet seemed to give him some kind of shocks. To me it looked as if good old Starscream was pretty dead and Ratchet didn't want to have it."

Prowl nodded slowly. That was pretty close to the truth.  
"I demand of you to keep silent about this. It is vitally important. May I?" He marched over to the computer terminal.  
"The information you received is classified top secret" he explained, "that allows me by article 75 b of the third book of security to check what you've been doing on the internet while you were in possession of that information but not informed about it being classified."  
He shoved Sunstreaker away from their terminal.

"Hey! You can not be serious, Prowl, what we do in the internet is absolutely our thing!" the yellow lambo protested.

Prowl shook his head and connected himself to the terminal. "No. And to calm you: I don't care a bit about you having watched humans mate again or glorify yourself on your homepage. I only need to know if you... accidentally... breached security measures by giving out classified information."  
Prowl had a pretty good education of informatics and hacking – it only took him a microklik to retrieve the hastily erased cache of the browser.

"Prowl, that's not right what you're doing, you perverted yerk!" Sunstreaker protested when he saw the tactician scanning through the pages they had visited recently. He looked at the others for support, but Smokescreen would surely not dare to confront the feared tactician and Sideswipe also made a calming gesture at his twin, showing him that he should let everything happen.

Prowl sighed when he checked the form data.  
"Your search terms were "Forced reboot", "Mech small" and "mech dead", in the internet as well as logged in as Sideswipe in the Ark's databank. Great work, really, you screamed out at the Decepticons what just happened here. I bet Soundwave can get a hold on that in some way. I should put you all into jail for stupidity. Unfortunately there is no law that allows punishment for being an absolute idiot."

The twins goggled at him with open mouths. "Soundwave... you think Soundwave can know what we are searching for in the internet?"

Prowl stared back at them.  
"Of course he can" he said, against his character deliberately lying. There was in fact no proof of that, only some hints because of situations which were otherwise inexplicable.  
But he found when his logic processors were telling him that it would grant the best possible outcome for further secrecy - it was surprisingly easy to lie.

* * *

"Hush, hush" Wheeljack rocked the whimpering baby patiently. Carefully he held his head back when Ratchet inserted the plug of the makeshift mini-status-checker into the port under his helmet rim.  
The child did in no way fight it.

"Got it" announced the medic and removed the plug.

They gazed at the values.

"Damn it" Ratchet cursed.  
The fuel of the little engines was also nearly gone. The electric status was alright, but he guessed they only had about three hours until the fuel was used up.

They had frantically tried out everything to get something anywhere close to Starscream's milk. But it had not worked out. Even the probably low-quality milk they had extracted from his offlined body was far superior to anything they had managed to produce.  
They were opting for having the ingredients separately but super clean now. And hoped that the little digestion unit would get along with it.

The baby was surprisingly calm. He whined and whimpered sometimes, but he didn't seem to be overly bothered about the loss of his father and the fact that other mechs were caring for him.

Ratchet again checked Starscream's sparkenergy curve and found it hadn't changed. Sometimes it neared zero for quite a while, having made them believe it would be over soon quite some times now. But then it began zigzagging about wildly again.  
Perceptor had been doing research, but he had not found much. Opinions varied widely about what such a curve could mean. It ranged from dire fight to be reconnected with a body to last peaks before ultimate extinction.

Frustrated, Ratchet slumped into the seat by the computer terminal of the medbay and contacted Optimus Prime over a top secure line.  
The distillation and filtering would take some more time until they could offer the child anything anyway.

Prime answered pretty quickly.  
"Prime in, give me some microkliks, Ratchet" said their leader and they heard that he was walking, probably finding himself a place to retreat to to have a talk with the medic.

"So now. What is Starscream's status?"

"Unchanged since Prowl reported to you. The body is without any current and function. Though he should be perfectly operational now. The spark continues to make wild curves, changing with nearly dying out."

"Despite everything, I'm not happy to hear that" said Prime. "How is the child coping?"

"He is surprisingly calm. But very hungry. We will try to feed him soon. I hope he can manage."

"So Starscream was really serious about killing himself."

"Determined, no question. I mean... he knew that we could do nothing against him starting his turbine. Not in time. It was his death sentence when he started it."

"He's not dead yet!" said Jazz weakly, still crouched at the treating table.

"Yeah, well, blackout-sentence" Ratchet sighed. "Anyway, this definitely was no attempt of suicide, but it was a determined decision to be gone."

Optimus sighed. "I will try to return to the Ark as soon as possible. But I'm afraid it might take some time to excuse us here. Meanwhile keep your heads down and try to get him back. No matter what."

"We will. Ratchet out."

"Optimus Prime out."

"I don't like it that you are calling him dead already" Jazz accused.

Ratchet sighed. "Leave me my way of dealing with this, Jazz, please." He stepped up to the table and checked on Starscream's body. No hint of anything having changed.  
Three breems had passed, leaving him to decide if he wanted to try a reboot again or not.

Jazz looked up pleadingly at him.

Ratchet sighed. "I will turn this knob now. Nothing else. I think a forced reboot makes no sense at the moment, his system should be ready."

Nodding, Jazz jumped up.

All of them stared at the still seeker when Ratchet turned the knob.

Microkliks passed.  
Not the slightest sound was audible, not even for Jazz with his keen hearing.  
But for the knob turning into off after some microkliks.

Disappointed, Jazz collapsed back beside the table, rocking himself desperately.

* * *

Prowl entered Blaster's "lair", as the communication centre was called by now.  
He had managed to get the twins off of him without needing to tell them that the little robot they deemed a remote of some kind was Starscream's son. And he was determined to manage to even let the nosy Blaster unclear about the exact situation.

The cassette deck turned when he entered.  
"Hey Prowl man! Rare visitor. Have a seat... well... yeah a moment please!" Blaster jumped and tidied up a little.  
The comm centre was full of strange devices which could receive all sorts of radio waves and recorded a huge amount of information going through interesting knots of the internet.  
When the comm officer had cleared a chair of spare parts and bits of all his weird machinery, Prowl sat down.

"I think it's in vain to ask you what you snapped up in the last hour since I'm convinced that you will not tell me the whole truth anyway" Prowl came straight to the point.  
"I want you to treat everything concerning our Decepticon prisoner that comes to your processors absolutely top secret. You have to take care that nothing of it goes out to the Decepticons. Tell me, how big is the chance that the Decepticons got knowledge of it already?"

Blaster stared at Prowl for a moment, feeling pretty caught.  
Since the tactician obviously knew that he knew everything anyway, he didn't bother to pretend otherwise.  
He had caught Prowl hacking the twin's computer terminal, knowing that he had tried to erase the evidence of them searching for the topic at hand in the net.  
"Not very likely. Soundwave would have to be able to tap our line directly. I believe the codes I set up are pretty secure. They change our ids several times when we enter the human internet. I find it unlikely that Soundwave is able to tell who it is when, like, Sideswipe happens to search for the term "Forced Reboot" and guess from it that it is about Starscream. I mean, I don't know why he searched for "mech small", if that might give a Decepticon any clue about it having to do with Starscream..."

Prowl didn't take the bait – he did not react in any way that would give Blaster a clue. Damn it, he was so curious about that little thing!  
But he guessed now that Prowl had intimidated them, he'd also not get information out of the twins anymore.

"It is your task to shield the things that might surface here about Starscream's condition to the outside" said Prowl sternly. "The Decepticons ought not to know that. It might result in a violent attack. We can not use that now. Blaster, I demand of you to take that really seriously. And don't poke around yourself, thinking you are the best in internet security anyway. I believe that you are constantly underestimating Soundwave because you can not live with the possibility that he might equal or even surpass your qualities."

"Hey, Prowl man, impossible!"

"That's it. You believe that, I know something else. Blaster, when I catch you making stupid things here I will remember other things you did against the law I have let pass in the past. And you will end up judged for it all."

Intimidated, Blaster nodded. "Right, right, got the hint."

"Nothing to anyone" Prowl repeated, "And no poking around that might lead the Decepticons to the tracks in the first place."

When Blaster had nodded his acknowledgement, Prowl rose and left.

What would he give for a trustworthy communication officer...

* * *

Wheeljack bedded the baby against his chest and Ratchet gave the bottle into his hand.  
They had made a teat for it similar to the valve at the end of Starscream's feeding tube and Wheeljack carefully nudged the baby's mouth with it.

The little one made a face and pulled back.  
"Come, try it" Wheeljack encouraged him. "I know it doesn't smell or taste like your daddy's milk, but you need it, believe me."  
But the little one turned his head away and began to wail.

"Ratchet, can you give perhaps a little bit of milk just to coat the teat?" Wheeljack proposed.

The medic nodded and fiddled around at Starscream's chest, trying to pull some more milk from his still systems.  
It were only millilitres.  
He coated the teat of their bottle with it and Wheeljack gently shoved it into the baby's mouth.  
At first the little one sucked, but when he realised he had been tricked and strange tasting fuel was coming from the bottle instead of the tasty milk he was used to, his face twisted and he whimpered past the teat.  
"Please, drink, drink" Wheeljack encouraged him. "Ratch, quickly, find a similar bigger bottle and let me drink from it, perhaps we can convince him when he sees us drink like that."

The medic hurried to find a bottle and held it out at Wheeljack.  
"Well..."

"Oh yeah, slag. Perhaps better you do it then!" Wheeljack laughed.

Ratchet nodded and stood in direct eyesight of the baby, drinking from the bottle.  
"Mhhh, that's so tasty!" he said, though there was only water in his bottle.

The baby chewed unhappily on the teat, not really suckling. Tears were streaming from his white optics.  
He let the teat go and turned his head, trying to look past Wheeljack at his father.

It made them all sad to see.

"He hasn't really understood" Wheeljack sighed. "He still believes he will just wake from recharge or something."

Gloomy, Wheeljack tried to get the attention of the child back to the bottle, but soon it began to cry and shoved the bottle away, unwilling to be forced.  
Ratchet slumped into his seat.  
This would get ugly.

Jazz' head popped up behind the treating table.  
"Doesn't he take it?"

"No."

"Let me try."

He took over the baby from Wheeljack's arm and huddled it to his hood. "Hush, little one. Please, take it, for daddy. Daddy will need you when he comes back. We don't want you ill and weak when he returns, do we?"

Ratchet rolled his optics at this, but kept quiet.

Jazz began singing and slowly danced around in the medbay with the baby.  
It took some sips from the bottle, but soon it spit the teat out again and writhed. It was clearly not feeling comfortable.

"Let that be enough for now" said Ratchet. "His d.u. probably has to get used to it first."

Unhappy, Jazz rocked and soothed the whining baby until it fell into a fitful recharge.

* * *

Skywarp rocked his son gently, but the tears wouldn't dry so quickly.

"He misses him so badly" he said.

Sitting in a corner, watching his mate feed their baby, Thundercracker nodded. "I know."

"I miss them, too."

"I know. I can do nothing about it, love, you know that."

Sad, Skywarp nodded. "I would like to know how he is. Are you sure we can not ask Soundwave? I mean, Megs knows that he is at the Ark, and that we were the ones to bring the child. He barely reacted to that, why should he bother if we try to get in contact now?"

"Please, 'Warp, you don't know what's going on in that grey helmet. I have a bad feeling about this and I surely don't want to endanger you or Soundwave. Please, accept that. When we talk Soundwave into contacting the Ark for us, it might fall back on him and who knows what Megatron does to him?"

Skywarp whined. "But how shall this go on then? Will we never ever even be able to talk to him? Know how the child is faring? How he is faring between the Autobots? We don't even know if they have left him down there in that miserable cellar!"

"Enough, Skywarp. We can not endanger Soundwave for just that."

"He can decline on his own, Thundercracker. We leave the option open to him. He surely can estimate the situation between him and Megatron better than we can."

With a sigh, Thundercracker gave in.

* * *

Soundwave used his best code to protect the transmission he was sending.  
It was parted up in packages which he sent over different channels through the internet, hidden in other transmissions which made sense.  
Though he was pretty sure that nobody would ever notice in the Nemesis. Nobody ever cared for transmissions except for him anyway.

He winced hard when the door suddenly opened and someone came in.  
Thank Primus that he always connected with the terminal to exchange data and didn't use the screens and keyboards in the communication centre. That way nobody could see what he was really doing.

He inconspicuously pulled the cable out and hid it while he turned around.  
But to his relief he saw Skywarp with Storm and Thundercracker entering.

"Hey Soundwave!" the black and purple seeker greeted.

The Decepticons' communication officer nodded in greetings.

The seekers sat down by him. Skywarp made a gesture, asking if they could talk openly.

Shortly, Soundwave checked on the observations. It seemed secure.

"Any news from Screamer?" Skywarp asked lowly.

"Question timing: Accidental?"

"Uhm... yes?"

"Hints: Just made out from observing Autobot communication."

"What do they indicate?"

Soundwave had a desire to slap himself. Could he not just have said he had seen nothing? That would have been better for all here. Now he was stuck with telling him that someone in the Ark had in short intervals searched for the terms "mech small, mech dead and forced reboot."

"Certainty: Not enough to tell you. Sensors will be on it, though." Soundwave tried to get them off of him.

But Skywarp smelled it. His face darkened.  
"Soundwave, what do you know?"

"Unwilling to tell as long as information is not confirmed."

"Soundwave! You're scaring me!" Skywarp said.

But the comm officer ignored him.

"Can we contact him?"

"Impossible."

"Leave a message?"

"Not without the Autobots knowing."

"Shall they know, I don't care!"

"Timing: not good. Leave: suggested."

Skywarp slumped with a sigh.  
"Keep us informed."

Soundwave preferred to give no affirmation.

The seekers left.

Soundwave hung his head.  
He didn't look forward to telling Skywarp he assumed that Starscream was dead.

* * *

Jazz collapsed on his recharge berth.  
He was totally worn out, but still found no peace to recharge.  
This was the third time that he lay down.  
Two times he had risen again after tossing and turning on his berth, had occupied himself with tidying up his room, with drinking some more energon, with checking messages and even playing solitaire.  
Nothing helped against his insomnia.

Always when the stillness settled in him, he had to think about the mech lying on the treating table in the medbay.  
All motionless and still.

It was driving him mad.

Twenty hours had passed since Starscream had collapsed in the corridor. For now over nineteen hours his body was without function.  
His spark still showed an energy curve. They had tried to reactivate Starscream six times since they had first fed the baby. Nothing.  
It was driving Jazz insane. The knowledge that he was still there, and not there. That the spark was not gone, but not in his body either.  
It felt wrong. Though Starscream was a Decepticon, even a high ranking one, and had wreaked a lot of havoc amongst their lines ever since, it still felt wrong.

Jazz had killed Decepticons, and a lot of them over the course of the time. He had never boasted with it, as others sometimes did, but honestly he also had no longer paid it much mind - at least not in later days.

But down here on earth it suddenly had a whole new dimension when one of the few Transformers still existing died.

And with one of them, he realised he had to think of their race in general. They were only so few left. And though they had fought each other, even seriously tried to kill - he found now that it was in fact hard to bear to see another transformer die even when it was an enemy. Frag they all knew each other pretty much on a personal level, friend and foe alike, so long had they interacted!  
Of course the circumstances took their toll. Starscream had been violated and it woke pity in Jazz. And then there was the baby, who was directly dependant on the seeker. That all lead to Jazz wishing it wouldn't happen. Hadn't happened. Starscream was not meant to be dead!

And the little one was suffering. He obviously got a tummy ache from the fuel he drank and after a cycle or so had thrown up a good deal of it again – unprocessed.  
Some of it had gone into his systems, but it was not enough to keep him running. So Ratchet had to dare to fill up the tiny tanks manually.

It had cost them all a good amount of nerves. Not because the child would have struggled – the little one had been surprisingly calm when the medic had with slightly shaking hands halfway disassembled him to get to the tanks – but because they were so afraid of breaking something.

Now the little one was out of pressing danger, but to have to refuel him manually every day was surely no prospect.

"Oh noes" sighed Jazz. He was thinking about it all again.  
No recharge in sight.

* * *

Blaster hesitated.  
What was that?  
The file of the report Tracks had sent from Washington D.C. had the wrong ending code.

Careful, he put it into quarantine on a separate computer, disconnected it from the rest of the system and analysed it.

It was obviously packed. There was a data stream piggy-backed on it.

Curious, Blaster extracted it.  
It was only one part of a datapackage, it was encoded in a way that he couldn't make sense of it without the other parts.  
But there was a beginning and end sequence that was practically screaming what belonged in front and after it.  
It would not be too difficult to find it.  
But who had hitched it on a report? With what intent?  
He felt a bit scared. It might be Soundwave's doing! After all the fuss Prowl had made about him, he was not so sure anymore that his comm system was utterly flawless. Perhaps the Decepticon was sending him some virus that would self-extract as soon as all parts reached their destination?  
Blaster hurried to completely erase the file from the system, made a backup of the drive and formatted it. Better safe than sorry.  
Now only the cracked file on the quarantine computer was left.  
Immediately Blaster began programming a countervirus that would look out for the missing parts of the hitched datapackage and isolate them immediately.

He was shocked to find that there were already three parts on the system! Thank Primus that he had found that strange ending code on Track's report, if he hadn't, the file might have self-extracted and done who knew what to his communication system and perhaps even to Teletraan!  
Excited, Blaster extracted the files to the quarantine computer and cleaned the rest of the computer system of them.  
It was a strange pattern. Two of them were piggy-backed on reports from the Autobots in Washington – Tracks and Huffer.  
One was on a private message of Bumblebee to Ratchet. That was the first part of the whole thing as it seemed.  
The forth one was hidden in an electronic bill that was going to Sunstreaker about some strange service he obviously had used in the internet.

Frantically searching, Blaster found another part just coming in via a message of a local fuel supplier, offering them special conditions.

It gave Blaster the creeps.  
Because it showed him that who ever was sending him this virus was perfectly informed about the messages going into the Ark.  
Seeing this, he grew certain that if it was Soundwave, he was absolutely capable of having snuffed up the search terms of the twins.

But on the other hand he was surprised that the virus file was so badly hidden and so clearly defined. It was absolutely easy for him to catch all six parts of it. And probably also secure the systems from it, he hoped, always having his super powerful virus scanner running.  
If Soundwave had been so serious about wanting to infect them with a dangerous virus – he had made a damn sloppy job with trying to hide it. Why did he bother to separate it into several inconspicuous files when it was so damn easy to find them if you looked for it?  
Blaster felt halfway offended by it. Didn't he know through whose system those files went?  
"Man, this is Blaster, you are not only a sorry excuse for a sound system but also for a hacker" the Autobot's communication officer murmured when he set the files loose on the quarantine computer.  
They self-extracted indeed. And became... a text file with the name "His optics".

Blaster stared at it for a while, awaiting some trick or so. But nothing happened.  
His excitement vanished. Stupid thing! Now he had awaited the ultimate onslaught of Decepticon hacker qualities, and everything that came in was some stupid text file?  
Perhaps it even weren't the Decepticons at all but some silly humans!

Curious, he opened it. It was password secured.  
He tried some routines, but to his anger none of them managed to get the password.

After a breem of having his best password-cracker programs running on the file and it stubbornly stayed closed, he decided to contact Prowl. If this had something to do with the strange things going on concerning Starscream being imprisoned here, the tactician would probably know what to do.

Prowl didn't even so much as mutter when he called him up at six in the morning.  
Within three kliks the tactician was with him in the lair and he showed the file to him.

Prowl thought for a while, then he gave Blaster a datapad and had him put the file on it.  
"Without any extra routines!" Prowl warned. "I know my pads exactly down to every bit!"

"Yeah yeah" the comm officer gnashed, feeling caught again. He was about to add an invisible observation routine to see what Prowl was doing with the file. But since the tactician was obviously easily seeing through him, he preferred not to land in his jail...  
Though it was very, very hard for him to tame his curiosity.

The tactician checked on his datapad thoroughly before saluting a greeting at Blaster and turn to leave.

"That might be dangerous!" Blaster felt the need to say.

"I know" the tactician only answered and was gone.

* * *

Shocked, Jazz jumped up when he received a message.  
From Wheeljack.  
Immediately he opened the channel, fearing that he would tell him that Starscream's spark had faded now.  
"Yeah?"

"Hey Jazz, we've got strange news here. Thought I ought to tell you since I saw you were awake."

"I'll come to the medbay" Jazz announced. "Can't recharge anyway."

"Alright."

Some kliks later Jazz rushed into the medbay.

It stung in his spark to see that Starscream's nearly invisible body was still lying on the treating table – not having moved the slightest bit.

His next look was for the observation monitor. It showed a very flat energy curve of the spark.  
He was nearly gone.

Several bots sat at the desk of the medbay. There was Wheeljack, rocking the baby, Ratchet staring at the screen, Perceptor crouched over him and even Prowl was there, sitting a bit away from the medic lot, arms crossed.

"What is it?" Jazz asked.

"We received a message. It's a recipe" said Wheeljack.

"A recipe?"

"For artificial mech milk" Ratchet explained.

Jazz stared.

"What?! Who could...?"

"Blaster was not able to exactly pinpoint it, but since the title of the file was "His optics" and the password "whiteffffff" we strongly assume it was Soundwave. The recipe sounds reasonable. We are just currently trying it out."

"Very good! I mean... Soundwave must know. Perhaps he was in a situation where he needed it or so. Whatever, do you think it might help?"

"When it works, it will surely help. But it will still not reach the quality of real milk. And it is an immense effort to produce. Not that we won't do it. If it's necessary even for two years or what. But it will practically be a job for one mech and a whole lot of machinery to constantly produce it."

"But still! At least there is hope that the little one can have a halfway pleasant childhood." He picked the baby from Wheeljack's arms and cuddled it.

"Yeah" sighed Ratchet.  
He had to admit he was immensely relieved. Also he had not found recharge, always thinking about how they could nourish the baby from now on.  
He had imagined his future in darkest colours, being mainly responsible for its health as a medic.  
Now there was hope if the recipe really worked.

Jazz hinted at the monitor with his chin.  
"What does it mean?"

"Jazz! I still don't know! You have asked me that for the sixth time now. The energy curve is low. That's the only thing I know. And it has been for quite a while now. It might happen at any moment that it extinguishes. It might be it recovers. Nobody can tell that."

Jazz hung his head. "I'm just so concerned."

"How exactly did the recipe reach you?" Wheeljack asked Prowl.

"Blaster found it hidden in several messages going for the Ark. It was hidden in a way that nobody would notice but him. And he couldn't open it, so he asked me if I knew what to make of it. I may say it took exactly the course Soundwave wanted it to take."

"What does that mean? Does Soundwave know that Starscream's... down?"

"I guess so. But that he sent us the recipe to help the little one might be a hint that they are not intending to attack right now."

Jazz stood up and walked over to the table.  
The little one gazed down at his father, but didn't make a noise.  
Though he was not entirely sure if it was good for the child, Jazz set it down on his father's chest.  
The little one crawled up on it and settled in the rift between the left fan and the cockpit. There he lay down, pressed his cheek against the cold glass and was still.

It made Jazz' spark hurt even more. It nearly looked as if the little one wanted to hold out there until his own death.

"Bring your father back" he murmured.  
"Call out for the spark in there. Tell him that you need him here."

To his surprise the energy curve of Starscream's spark began to zigzag wildly again. It probably was coincidence. But he wouldn't let the hope he had left be crushed.  
"Yeah, call out for him, call him back."

"Jazz... I'm not sure if that is good for the child" Ratchet said carefully. "Perhaps we should opt for him saying good-bye..."

"NO!"

"Jazz! Primus damn it, he is...!"

"No! No Ratchet, don't say it. How can you call a spark like that dead!" Jazz gestured for the monitor, showing chaotic peaks and valleys.

Resigned, Ratchet just shook his head and returned his attention to their experiments.


	8. 8 - Accept

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby, but I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" , but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

Other warnings: Suicidal thoughts

**Thanks to my readers for all the kind reviews! **

**8 Accept**

Late in the evening the Autobots returned from Washington D.C..

Optimus Prime was totally drained, but he only took some energon in the recreation hall with the other Autobots, then he rose and told them he needed to have some time alone.

In truth he went straight for the medbay, having quite realised that none of the Autobots involved in the Starscream issue had shown up for their welcoming committee except for Prowl.  
The medbay was locked and only when he announced himself he was let in by Wheeljack.

"Prime! Welcome back home!" said the engineer – merry as always, but with a hint of stress and depression in him.

He led Optimus around the corner to the main room of the medbay.  
The sight indeed was depressing.  
The body of Starscream lay on the table, connected to monitors and machines with several cables and tubes.  
But there was no sign of life in him.  
Sitting with his back leaned against the table, but obviously recharging, was Jazz, with the baby on his hood.  
Ratchet and Perceptor turned to greet Prime, but their faces were worn out and their optics pale with exhaustion.

Prime grabbed both their shoulders and squeezed them in a comforting gesture.  
"How is the situation" he asked lowly, sitting down with them at their strange apparatus and gurgling machines.

Ratchet rubbed his face tiredly.  
"We tried another reboot just half an hour ago. Nothing. But the spark is still alive" he pointed at the monitoring curve. "So we can not effectively call him dead. Have you spoken with Blaster?"

"Not about this here, no. I thought he shouldn't know anyway?"

"No, he should not. But that Blaster should not know something doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't. He got some hints. He can probably put them together just right.  
Anyway, Soundwave sent us a recipe for artificial mech milk. We're on it for a good ten hours now. And have produced six litres so far. Good quote, isn't it?"

"Sounds... not so effective..."

"At least it will just continue producing now, no more experiments probably. We will test if the little one takes and digests the milk soon."

"And what about him?" Prime pointed at Starscream with his facemask.

Ratchet shrugged. "No idea. The only thing we can do is sporadically trying to reboot. Until he either returns or his spark fades."

Prime nodded. "Hints on a Decepticon reaction, since Soundwave obviously knows of this?"

"None so far."

"Alright. Ratchet, get some rest, you look horrible."

The medic made a face. "I will try. I sometimes had some breems of recharge in between. But in whole none of us here can get real sleep. Shall we try it with the milk?"

"Yeah."

Wheeljack went to pick up the child.  
As soon as he had touched it, Jazz' onlined and looked up.  
"Prime!"

The Autobot leader smiled and stood up to greet his second in command.  
He didn't like how Jazz struggled to get to his feet. And the depression he emanated from every surface.  
In a wave of affection he embraced the smaller bot sparkily and patted his back.  
"My Jazz! This is quite straining for you, uh?"

"Yeah, man, I'm totally beside myself" admitted the second in command and immensely enjoyed to be pressed against Optimus' broad chest.

For a while the powerful Prime just held Jazz in his arms, and he was shocked to feel how his spark was in turmoil. Only when the smaller bot pulled back, he let him go.

They sat down by the desk, observing how Ratchet readied the bottle filled with the artificial milk.

"May I?" Jazz asked.

"I want it, too!" Wheeljack said, smiling.

"Well ok. Perhaps you're even better for him. I'm too depressed at the moment, it probably pulls him down" Jazz gave in.

They all watched anxiously for what would happen.

Wheeljack took the bottle and touched the baby's lips with the milk-coated teat.  
"Come, take it, it's goooood, satisfies a hungry little sparkling" Wheeljack crooned, making his headfins flash.  
Tentatively the baby licked at the teat.  
He didn't look really happy.  
"Yeah I know it's nothing against the milk of your father, but please, take it, uh? Come, come, drink."

For quite a while the baby seemed to think. It again tried to turn his head to see his father.  
Its gaze rested for a while on the still figure, obviously waiting for him to give him some reaction.  
But there was none.

Unhappy, the little one began to cry, looking desperately at the Autobots.  
"Hush there, little one! Hush, don't give up. We can make it together. We will be with you, we will never let you down" Wheeljack promised and nudged the little black glossa with the teat.  
Finally the full lips closed around it and the little one began to suckle.  
He shut his optics and streams of tears were coming from them.  
But he drank.

Jazz covered his face with his hands, leaning heavily into them.  
"Primus let something happen" he begged.  
By now even he was ready to let Starscream go, if it only meant that this insecurity would find an end.

Shoulders slumped, he rose and stepped over to the treating table.  
Carefully he groped for the seams in the chassis and opened them, baring the sparkchamber.  
He had to bow down to get the very faint warmth emanating from the spark.  
"Can you do me a favour?" he said and for a moment the other Autobots were not sure if they were meant or the weak spark.  
"Leave me alone with him for a while, will you?"

Prime immediately rose from his seat. "Of course."

Ratchet checked on the machines, found them working alright and agreed, too. They all left the medbay.

They headed for Wheeljack's lab just across from the medbay.  
"Ratchet, go get some sleep!" Wheeljack suggested and pointed at his recharge berth, which was located in an alcove in the wall.

"I will stay up for a while and watch over the little one. And when Jazz is through with Starscream, Perceptor and I will take shifts to watch the machines."

"You're nearly as low on energy as I am!" argued the medic.

"Exactly. Nearly as low as you, but not entirely so. Now go to sleep."

With a sigh, Ratchet turned to the berth.

"Do you think Jazz says good-bye to him now?" he asked while he was crawling into the alcove. At first he found the design awkward. It was so much easier to have your berth standing freely!  
But when he had lain down he found it surprisingly comfortable to have protecting walls on three sides and the ceiling close above. Plus Wheeljack had stuffed his berth with many pillows that invited to use more creative recharging positions than just lying on your back. It was cosy.

The other Autobots seemed to think.  
Finally Perceptor said. "I guess so. Perhaps it makes it better. He has to let him go."

But Wheeljack slowly shook his head. "I can't believe it. He will not let go. Not before there is no more hope. So... as long as the spark emanates energy, he will believe in him being able to come back."

"This is torture for our poor sensitive Jazz" sighed Ratchet and made himself comfortable in the cushions, turning his back to his friends. "Though I wonder why this touches him so. Okay, I feel sorry for the guy, too. But not that much..."

"Yeah. I think he grew quite fond of Starscream."

"That's no good. He should leave it. I mean... he's a Decepticon! Depression or not."

Wheeljack grunted.  
The bottle was nearly empty, but before it was done, the little one seemed to have fallen into recharge.  
"Who knows" he said mystically.

Ratchet snorted disdainful.  
"I know. It's Starscream, Wheeljack! You have seen his outburst when Jazz proposed him changing sides. Oh... yeah... Optimus..."

The Prime chuckled. "It's ok. I am of Wheeljack's opinion. If we really have the chance that Starscream changes, I would welcome it. Better have him on our side than as our enemy."  
Ratchet heard the heavy Autobot leader rise.  
"I will retreat now, if you allow. And next time human politicians invite me for meetings, remind me of it being pure horror before I say yes."

When he had left, Wheeljack stood up and placed a chair by his berth to sit down there, turning his back to Ratchet.  
The medic shortly looked over his shoulder, seeing that his old friend practically covered his back. He smiled tiredly.  
Then he felt himself overwhelmed by his exhaustion.  
Perceptor rose and bowed shortly to Wheeljack. "I'll be in my lab. You know what? I'll also take some recharge. Tell me when you end your shift and I take over."

"Agreed" confirmed Wheeljack.

* * *

Jazz made pictures with his camera of what was in front of him and gazed at them for a long while. His mind reeled, always chewing on the ever same thoughts of how he could have avoided this and that it hadn't worked out. It was maddening.

He had opened the sparkchamber and saw a weakly glowing orange light in it.  
It was bobbing slightly, and its flashes were mirrored in the curve the monitor showed.

Jazz was half lying on Starscream to be able to bring his face very close to the sparkchamber.  
The body was cold and silent. So deathly silent.  
With hearing being his most sensitive sense, that was the thing that drove him crazy. He heard every little sound a mech body made - and it normally was an orchestra. Pumps, joints, valves, electro motors, hydraulics, yes even electronic flow - he could hear it all.  
Not so here.

He plucked his gaze off the weak spark, trying desperately to stop his mind from the futile circle run it was having.  
His gaze raked over the lifeless shell of the seeker and he forced his mind to shove the old train of thoughts aside and be open for new ones.  
Just letting impressions flood him he realised what a massive bot Starscream was. He normally only met seekers in battle and saw to avoiding getting up close and personal with them.  
Now he was practically huddled up against Starscream and when he looked up and down was impressed by the sheer size of him.  
When his gaze reached the face the intimidation he had felt faded. It was so tiny and cute and lovely. What a strange thing. How could he look so damn pretty when paralysis forced his face out of the usual sneer into a neutral expression?  
Starscream was a brutal Decepticon who had killed many Autobots without a second thought!

Disbelieving, Jazz shook his head. It failed to impress him right now. He couldn't make himself wanting him to be gone.  
Gathering his courage, he tried to honestly analyse why that was so and faced his spark's feelings.  
Pity. Yes, it was mostly pity. He felt sorry for the person Starscream was for all the abuse he had suffered. The rape was only the final drop that had the barrel overflow.  
He had lived with Primus forsaken Megatron for millennia! Being his main aim for venting and aggression. How much abuse had he suffered in his life? It was incomprehensible.

Jazz' hand wandered and his fingertips carefully touched the full lips of the seeker. They were so soft, yet lifeless. It was terrifying.  
"You have withstood for so long" Jazz said. "Do not let this break you!"

His voice grew rough when he imagined their future. What should they do if Starscream died? Deliver his body to the Cons? Bury it? Burn it?  
Images appeared in his mind of a bier with the dead seeker on it and Optimus Prime lighting it on fire. The fire would feed of tinder first. It would probably take quite a while until it caught on the seeker's body, for they were made to withstand heat. But finally sealing would begin to melt and allow access to the inner parts. When the body grew hot enough the rubber parts would go up in flames and then it was a matter of a few minutes until the whole bot was burning.

Jazz shuddered. He had seen it so often. Brought so many friends to their grave.

His mouth had grown dry and he swallowed troublesomely.  
The paint would begin to bubble and peel and turn ashen.  
The sounds of that happening replayed in his head, clear and distinctive, conjuring up the terror and grief that normally accompanied them.

Before incineration, a body would be drained of its fluids, but some rests would remain and make sudden colourful flames burst out of the general inferno with a hiss.

Mercilessly his mind put Starscream in the place of the burning heap his imagination made up. It made his spark coil and he coughed and sobbed. No.  
He never ever wanted that again. Not with anybody.

Glass would shatter. The metal parts would begin to glow and distort.  
The distinct from would blur and then someone would put more fuel to the fire and oxygen and drive up the heat until the steel melted.

Gone. Forever gone. A being that had existed for millennia, wiped out in a few minutes.

Jazz' hands clasped the rims of Starscream's chest intakes. "No!" he gasped.

His imagination ran further with him and made up how the world would be after that.

The Decepticons void of their second in command. The elite trine headless.  
Megatron without his favourite venting aim. It would surely change a lot in the generally very stabile setup of the transformers society.  
Jazz hated such changes.

And what would happen with the child?  
They could not give him back to the Cons! Though it would probably be best to have Skywarp nurse him. But no, impossible. They had to somehow manage to nourish him here.

The aspect of having to raise the first ever earth born transformer child suddenly scared him. Could he take the responsibility?  
If Starscream left, he would surely be too churned up and shocked to be a good foster father for the child.  
Wheeljack would sure be better. Yes.

But best would still be if Starscream decided to stay and do it himself.

Jazz carefully inched his hands into the body of the seeker and stroked the spark chamber.  
"I want you to come back" he whispered.  
"You hear me?"  
No reaction.  
"I want you to come back. The world ... you belong here. It's not right when you're gone."  
Very very carefully he stretched out a finger and touched the spark.  
It felt slightly warm and there was a very faint energy distortion when he touched it.  
"Please. We will find a life for you you can enjoy. And seriously, Starscream... the boy... he can be what you need to overcome this. You can love him. I know it. You can make up for what was done to you by tending to your own sparkling. See it that way. He is half you. Your very core. And he needs love. He needs support. You are meant to give it. When you cuddle him, his spark will glow up. When you tend to him, he will be happy. When you feed him, he will grow. When you love him, he will love you back. For everything.  
Do you really want to leave that to us?  
You have a bond with his spark. Because it is a part of you. There is no relationship that can be deeper than that. Do you really want to give that up? The chance to develop a loving relationship to a wonderful little new mech?  
He cares for you. We have seen that. That you decided to leave him hurts him deeply. Do you not want to savour that love he harbours for you? Do you want to throw that gift away?"  
Jazz' head had sunken deeper, he was nearly touching the glowing sparkchamber with his face now.  
For a short moment he was tempted to kiss it. But he could hold himself back. That would be mean, not being sure of the consent of the other.

Instead he began to hum a melody.  
Then he took it up and sang.  
Sang the song he had talked about with Starscream. The singer he knew resembled the seeker in his voice.  
He had called beautiful.

* * *

Wheeljack carefully entered the medbay when after an hour Jazz had still not shown up.  
He was startled when he saw the second in command lying like dead over the seeker and rushed up to him, but he found him just in recharge.  
His head was resting on the seeker's chest. The sparkchamber was bare. And still glowing slightly.  
Wheeljack sighed and carefully closed it. It was too dangerous to leave it open.  
But he didn't wake Jazz. When the poor guy could only sleep on Starscream's chest, so be it. He had not had proper recharge for two days.

The engineer checked on their distillation machines and the progress of producing the milk. It was working out. And he had to say he was pretty satisfied. The child was recharging rather peacefully on his arm.  
It for sure had suffered from malnourishment, probably even for the last few days with Starscream's milk flow running dry. Its growth had stopped, it weighed even a little less than three days ago when they had first weighed it. Now they would have a close optic on his weight development with the artificial milk.  
The weakest point of the artificial milk was the dissolved metals.  
A mech's digestion unit. managed to disperse metal atoms in the generally oily substance of the milk without exactly using dissolvent. The dissolvent they necessarily needed to disintegrate metal pieces was the substance with which the baby couldn't get along and they used complicated procedures now to clean the substances of those alien ingredients.  
It at least worked enough to not give the poor little one another tummy ache. For how long... time would have to tell.

* * *

Soundwave could not make out any more slips in the security of the Ark.  
He was pretty sure that his transmission had worked, but there was no real reaction to it.  
Unfortunately he couldn't find out what Starscream's status was.  
To rely on three search terms only to judge that he was dead was too hasty for sure.

But no matter what he tried he couldn't find more clues about the seeker's status.

So finally he decided to send Laserbeak out. Though he tried to use the secret passage through the volcano as seldom as possible to keep it secret he found this was important enough.

But Laserbeak also returned without definite info – but for the knowledge that the prison cells were empty. So it was either Starscream was by now living in a better place, or he was dead. Or in the medbay still, for the medbay was not in reach for Laserbeak – it was too crowded around there and in the very central of the Ark.

Skywarp unnerved him with asking him every few cycles what he knew about Starscream.  
Finally he was growing wary of it when it happened again.

"Information: Unreliable."

"Yeah yeah, I know that!" said Skywarp impatiently. "I want it anyway."

"Information in wrong hands: dangerous."

"Am I the wrong hands?" Skywarp huffed indignant. "Come on, I can handle it."

"Assumption: no you can't."

"Come on, Soundwave, don't be ridiculous! I'm a grown mech!"

"He's dead."

That immediately silenced the seeker.  
He gaped at Soundwave with huge, bright optics and open mouth.  
"Not serious."

"Assumption: only relying on Sideswipe searching for the terms "mech small, forced reboot, mech dead". No reliable source but in the sum of it hinting at Starscream."

"No! No, that can't be! Thundercracker! Thunder! Come here quickly, please, I'm at the comm" Skywarp radioed his lover. "Why? Oh Soundwave, you must be mistaken!"

"Desired situation."

"What's it with the child?"

"Recipe for artificial milk sent. Will keep him alive."

Thundercracker came rushing in, having heard that his lover was agitated. "What is it?"

"Thunder! Soundwave suspects that Starscream is dead!" he cried and flung himself at his lover, needing a hug.

"What? Why?"

"Observation of the outgoing information. Someone, probably Sideswipe, searched for the terms "mech small, forced reboot, mech dead". Most likely conclusion: Speaking of Starscream. Likely event is that something happened to him that resulted in a forced reboot and perhaps in his death. Nothing is secure about that."

Skywarp began to cry. "It can not be! We have to go and look, Thunder! I can not live with the uncertainty."

The blue seeker gulped. "Skywarp..."

"Come on! The Autobots did not snatch us when we went there with the child... to do something to us when we want to see our ill or perhaps even dead friend would be totally immoral. Soundwave, are you sure we can not contact them?"

"Before you go fly there, suggestion is indeed we do that."

Skywarp wiped at his tear-streaked face. "Yes, please, Soundwave, contact them. I need to know!"

The communication officer sighed. "Problem: What do we do if the assumption is correct? What do we tell Megatron? When he gets to know, he might come to the idea to snatch the child and force you to feed it. Perhaps even instead of Storm if that is necessary."

Skywarp's optics paled and he picked his recharging baby up and huddled it to his chest. "No..." he whispered. "But you said you sent them a milk recipe?"

"Milk recipe was used to support my feeding of my twins. They were draining me too much when I was nourishing them both, but they always had milk. It was only an addition. If they could have managed without real milk, unknown."

"Oh Primus, the little one...!"

"The problem stays. Do we want to know how Starscream is and perhaps endanger ourselves with the knowledge?"

Thundercracker determinedly shook his head. "No. Definitely no."

"But... when Starscream should really be dead... I would want to see him a last time... and we can not just leave the little one to his fate! I would rather..."

Jumping for him, Thundercracker pressed his hand tightly over his mouth.  
"Shut up" he hissed before Skywarp could voice the thought of changing sides. "Don't get us into even more trouble than we already have."

Skywarp sobbed.

What should they do?

* * *

Floating.

Lost.

Without orientation.

Where was he?

And where should he be… floating?

He writhed in the nothingness, trying to find any point of orientation.  
But he was out of space and room. There was only time passing him, a one-dimensional space.  
He could not even tell if it was light or dark, cold or warm, loud or still.  
Even the pain was gone now. There was nothing left he could cling to, nothing he could rely on.  
There was nothing.

Sadness overcame him.  
The silence was deafening. The lightlessness blinding. The lack of matter numbing.

He knew that there had been pain. That he had been hurt. That was down the one dimension –it was in the past.  
But where in the pit was the future? When time was the only dimension he had at the moment, he should be able to tell that. But he couldn't.  
There was one thing though that he knew.  
He was alone. He didn't want to be alone.

* * *

Wheeljack turned when he heard noises behind himself.  
It was Jazz. He slowly rose and stared at the seeker.

"I closed the sparkchamber" Wheeljack explained, guessing at that Jazz might be wondering how it had come to that.

"Ah" the second in command said disappointed.

Stretching his limbs, he rose from his crouched position and came over to the engineer at the desk.

"What did you do?" Wheeljack asked gently.

"Tried to lure him back. Told him what he would miss. And how he would be missed."  
Jazz massaged his aching head.  
"Seems it hasn't helped?" he whispered and pointed at the spark-energy-curve.  
It was very very low and calm now.

Wheeljack shrugged. "It has been like this now for over an hour."

Jazz gazed into the crate they had padded to be the little one's cradle.  
The baby c-class had huddled into one corner of it, lying rolled up in a tight ball on his side.

"How's he faring?"

"With the artificial milk? Rather well I think. In comparison to our tries. He will probably grow much slower with it only. But I hope he will otherwise not suffer great disadvantages."

Jazz smiled sadly.

"Poor little one. Imagine, Wheeljack! He is the first mech child born on Earth! And now he is probably left alone by his father. I don't get it how Starscream could do that. But then again – nobody could understand why I was sad those few years back. And I couldn't understand why all people were so happy. Depression is a strange thing."

Wheeljack patted Jazz' back encouragingly. "Indeed."

* * *

Soundwave gave himself a nudge.  
It would not help.  
If Starscream really was dead, Megatron would know it sooner or later.  
To find it out now was only shortening things up.

Determined, he punched in some codes and frequencies.

Only ten seconds later Blaster found a message addressed at him prominently in his inbox.

* * *

Blaster immediately called Prowl up and his fans were humming agitatedly.  
When the tactician arrived in his lair, he explained excitedly:  
"I got a message directly from Soundwave, man! At least the sender claims he is Soundwave and I am incapable of finding out where the message came from."

"What does it say?" asked Prowl, unimpressed.

"How is Starscream?"

"Not so good. Spark is nearly gone."

"Ah… ok. Very interesting Prowlie, but I just told you the message. It says "How is Starscream."

Prowl closed his optics for a rather long time. "Yeah, alright. I never could muster surprise about things you know. It sounded perfectly likely to me that you are by now informed about the matter."

Blaster couldn't help but laugh. "Great security jerk Prowl just gives out top secret information because he thinks I know it anyway. Well, thank you for your trust in my talents."

The tactician snorted, feeling immensely stupid.  
"Well… leaving that aside… "How is Starscream" is the only content of the message?"

"Yeah. And an instruction how and whereto I have to send the answer to reach him."

"I will contact Prime and ask him how we react" announced the tactician.

Some kliks later the Prime was with them in the lair.  
"I have just talked with Perceptor, who is running the shift in the medbay at the moment. The status is nearly unchanged. They tried another reboot just half an hour ago – it didn't work.  
The spark seems to grow weaker, but nobody can really tell that.  
The curve is flat and near to zero.  
I have thought about it for quite a while. And my judgement is that we can not withhold the Decepticons the information about Starscream's status.  
Despite everything, he still is a Decepticon, and though it is not really apparent, it might be even the Decepticons sometimes feel concern for a comrade or even friendship. In the case somebody of them wants to see him… I would even be inclined to allow it."

Taking a deep breath, Prowl tried his best… his best to just trust.  
"As you wish."

Prime nodded at Blaster to write a message accordingly.  
He dictated: "Starscream's status is dire. After refusing sustenance and leading our medic astray about his true state, Starscream passed out and emergency shutdown occurred after a deep discharge. All tries to reconnect his spark with his body failed so far.  
Yet the spark still shows a weak energy curve.  
Optimus Prime."

"You wanna sign?"

"Yes. I mean, I'm Prime, it's sure that I know about this thing, isn't it? Then nobody in particular finds himself the target of the Cons."

"If you say so. Alright, I will send this message now?"

"Yes, do it."

* * *

Soundwave's spark clenched when he received the answer of the Autobots.  
It was but a breem later when it came – showing him that the Autobots hadn't thought for long about it.

For a good while he considered not telling Skywarp. For he would surely want to go to the Autobots to see Starscream.  
But then again it was not his responsibility to keep Skywarp out of danger by not telling him important information.  
He called the two seekers up to his room, from where he had made the transmissions.

"What's news?" Skywarp asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

Gesturing at them to sit, Soundwave let himself fall into his comfortable couch.

Skywarp looked at him expectantly, sitting at the very edge of the sofa opposite him.

"Starscream's spark is alive. But barely so. His body is out of function."

The seekers both winced.  
"But why?" asked Skywarp, voice hoarse.

"He obviously starved down to emergency shutdown. It sounds as if he did that on purpose, and given the observations Thundercracker made, seeing him last, it doesn't sound so unlikely. The Autobots surely didn't deny him food. Especially not since he had to nurse the little one."

Skywarp covered his mouth with his hand. "Oh Primus! What exactly does that mean now? His spark is still alive?"

"They try to reconnect spark and body, but it doesn't work. Since I trust in Ratchet to be able to repair the body, it seems the spark is unwilling to return."

Tears ran over Skywarp's face and Thundercracker carefully embraced his emotional, sensitive lover.  
"I want to see him" the black and purple seeker whispered.

"I had feared that" sighed Thundercracker.

"Oh come on, TC! It's perhaps a chance to bring him back when we show him we care! And when it doesn't… I at least want to have seen him again! And the poor little one... I have to see how he does. And we have to decide what we do with him."

Thundercracker nodded slowly. He saw it was futile to try to keep Skywarp from flying for the Autobots. Instead of having him slip out secretively or just warp there, he preferred to have an optic on him.  
"What do you say, should we perhaps just tell Megatron what we know and that we want to see Starscream in peace?"

"He will probably ask us to bring the child."

"Yes. Perhaps. We can decide if we want to do that. There." TC looked meaningfully at his lover.

Skywarp gasped, understanding that he proposed to change sides in the case Megatron wanted them to bring him the child. Because if he did, it was most likely that he would force Skywarp to feed him.

They all sat in silence for a while. Then Skywarp rose.  
"We do it that way. We have to be clear about Megatron's reaction. To go to the Autobots without him knowing would be foolish. He would find out and he would punish us. But when we ask him now, only three things can happen. First: He doesn't care and lets us do as we like. We see Starscream and the baby and return when we have the impression the little one can live in safety with the Autobots. Second: He sends us there to fetch the child. We leave and … fetch it. Perhaps. Third: He forbids us to go to the Autobots. What we do when that occurs, we will have to think about then. Alright?"

Surprised about Skywarp taking the lead in this, Thundercracker considered his proposal. And nodded. It was the only reasonable course.

* * *

Prime had sought out the medbay. He wanted to look for Jazz especially. But he had to admit he also wanted to see the baby again. It was just too fascinating.

He found Perceptor still on shift, reading a datapad while also watching over the machines producing the nourishment for the baby.

Jazz was not there, to his surprise.

"Where is my second?" asked Prime lowly. But in the next moment he saw that the baby was not asleep – the little head popped out from the cradle, looking out for the visitor.

"He finally was ready to take some recharge" announced the scientist. "He left about three breems ago."

"At last. How was he? Very upset?"

"Not so much upset anymore. More sad. I think he is beginning to accept."

Prime gazed at the monitor.  
The sparkenergy was still flowing lowly.

From the cradle, the little dark face looked at him curiously.

Smiling, he crouched down to come nearer without startling the child with his size.  
"Hey there, little one. I'm Optimus Prime." The huge leader of the Autobots lay down on the floor of the medbay, his head over the cradle.

A tentative smile crept over the child's sweet face.

"Yeah, hello there!" Optimus stretched out a finger. At first the child winced back. But when he saw that the huge robot was very careful and slowly moving the finger which had the size of his legs, he looked at him again.  
Carefully he stretched out his hands and touched the huge blue finger offered to him.

"That's a pity" said Prime. "I'm just too frigging big. I can not even really fondle him with fingers which make up a whole limb of him."

Perceptor chuckled. "Indeed, that's a good size mismatch. I must say I was very surprised about the size of the baby. I always thought they were bigger."

The door of the medbay opened and Ratchet came in.  
"Hello folks." He saw Prime on the floor and smiled.  
"Really little the little one, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Have you rested, Ratchet?"

"Yes, very well indeed. All batteries full. I must say I feel much better now. I have recharged like a machine. Have a bad conscience – Wheeljack is lying on his sofa now instead of his berth."

Prime smiled at him. "He will sleep better there than if he had thrown you out of his berth, Ratchet, believe me. He will be fine. He can recharge anywhere, anyway."

Ratchet checked on the machineries. "How much?"

"11 litres" said Perceptor. "Not much, but it maybe it's sufficient to keep up with the hunger of the little one. For now."

"Hope so. Did you…" he waved at Starscream's motionless body.

The scientist nodded. "Jazz tried it once. I tried it two hours ago. Nothing."

"The curve?"

"Has been like this for the past ten hours now"

Ratchet sighed.

Slowly he began to wish that Starscream could finally let go. He had no idea how it was, living as a spark without a body. But he could not imagine it really pleasant.

A beep sounded from Prime.  
"Oh, sorry. Message. Yeah, Prime in?"

Prime's face darkened, but then lit up again.

"That's alright, Red, yeah. Yeah…. Calm down. I know what is happening. I will handle that together with Prowl. No don't bother. Red! Primus… no Red… RED ALERT SHUT UP!"

Both Ratchet and Perceptor had to fight back a laugh.

With a desperate sigh, Prime fought to get up from the floor. He gave the child a careful nudge for good-bye.  
"I think I'll be back soon" he said and left.

When he left the Ark, Prowl was awaiting him outside.

"Man, Red is sometimes wearing even my patience down" the tactician said.

Prime just smiled knowingly.

In silence they marched up to the hill where they had met Skywarp the last time.

It was a good breem until they made out the sound of jets and saw the silhouette of two seekers appearing in the colourful dawn sky.

The two Decepticons were coming down at the spot they had commanded, transformed, put down their weapons and came towards them.

"Thundercracker, Skywarp" Prime greeted briefly.

The face of the younger seeker was grief-stricken, the older one was seemingly unmoved.

"How is he, Prime?" Skywarp asked.

"Unchanged. Has a very weak energy curve."

"We have our little one with us" Skywarp informed and pointed at Thundercracker, indicating that the baby was in his cockpit.  
"Didn't want to leave him at the Nemesis. Only for you to know."

"Yes, that's alright.  
Follow me, please. Prowl will come after you."

Together they made for the Ark.

Prime used deserted corridors to bring the Decepticons to the medbay, and indeed they managed to not meet anybody, since most Autobots were currently at the recreation hall, enjoying themselves.

"Don't be startled" Prime announced them upon entering the medbay, "Everything is under control."  
He let the two seekers in.

Skywarp immediately jumped for the treating table.  
"Starscream!" he called out, seeing his wing-commander's still body lying there.

It made his spark clench to look at his lifeless form. Optics off, engines dead, not one single fan humming.  
He couldn't keep the tears from spilling from his optics.  
"Can I touch him?" he asked hoarsely.

Ratchet nodded, surprise still written all across his face. "Just don't rip the cables out."

Carefully, Skywarp embraced the dead body of his leader.  
"Starscream" he whispered into his audioreceptors, but then thought better of it and turned his attention to his chest, where the spark was

"Screamer" he whispered. "Don't leave us! Do you hear me? TC and I are here, have come to see you."

"Wap?" a small voice sounded through the room.

Skywarp's head shot up. "Oh Primus, little one!"

Ratchet quite noticed how Skywarp's hand slid caressing over Starscream's chest while he left the table.  
Skywarp hurried over to the cradle and picked the baby out, huddling it to his chest.  
"Oh little one, hello my little one" he babbled, rocking the baby.

"Wap! Wap!" the little one chirped, face alight with glee, little hands clawing at the seeker.

"Aww, sweetie, you know my name!" Skywarp pressed a kiss to the little helmet. It made the child giggle.

Thundercracker opened his cockpit and picked Storm out. He felt rather secure with seeing how all the Autobots observed with smiling faces how Skywarp cuddled the baby.

Storm had been in recharge, but now he woke and looked around, surprised.  
He saw his daddy and the baby and gave a gleeful squeal, stretching his hands out towards them.  
Thundercracker stepped up to them, taking care that he always shielded the view of Starscream's body from his son with a wing.

The little one bobbed on Skywarp's arm with excitement when he saw Storm and as soon as he could reach him, embraced the smaller baby tightly.  
"Stom stom!"

"Wow, you began to speak?" Skywarp wiped at his tears. "Aww, this hurts. I so want to have Starscream see this."  
He gazed unhappily over his shoulder at the still mech on the table.

Determined, he marched over to him and bowed over him, sitting the little one on his cockpit.  
"Screamer! Come back! There is so much here you miss!"

* * *

Jazz woke after only an hour of recharge, but he felt halfway rested.

Depressed, he shuffled down to the medbay.

When he entered he was surprised to find it absolutely crowded.  
Prime was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, Prowl was watching the door and beside Ratchet and Perceptor two seekers were there with their baby…

"Skywarp! Thundercracker!"

Skywarp looked up and smiled sadly at Jazz.  
"Hey Jazz."

"Thank Primus you came!" Jazz looked at the monitor. But he was disappointed. He had hoped that the presence of his seeker friends might bring Starscream back. But the curve of his spark energy was still low and not reacting.  
He sighed.

Skywarp nodded. "I know. I had hoped the same" he said, perfectly understanding Jazz.  
He rose and sat down on the edge of the table, pulling his feeding tube from the hatch under his right intake.  
"You must be horribly hungry, little one, uh?" he said and lifted the baby to his chest.

At first the little one hesitated for a moment and looked at his father as if expecting allowance to drink from someone else. But then he tentatively took the valve Skywarp offered him and began to suck happily.

Jazz took a picture and checked it. He wanted to know how Storm looked.

The picture touched his spark deeply, how the seekers were gathered around the lifeless Starscream, Skywarp feeding the starving baby.

"How does it come you are here?" asked Jazz, looking with awe at the nursing seeker.

"Prime told us about Starscream's state.  
We asked Megatron for allowance to see him. And surprisingly enough he gave it with nothing but a grumble."  
Skywarp reached out and patted Starscream's cockpit.  
"Come, old buddy. It can not be that bad, uh?" he said lowly.

"It's… he just didn't want anymore… he wouldn't take energon and water…" Jazz struggled to explain.

Thundercracker nodded. "We know. I must say I'm not really surprised.  
At the Nemesis, routine kept him going. And the need to care for the child. But here… it was not so surprising that he chose this place and this moment to make his leave."

Thundercracker received an angry slap from Skywarp. "He did not leave! Yet."

The blue seeker made a "When you say so" face and cuddled his son, who became a little scared by all those new faces around.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Jazz insecurely, including the Decepticons into the question.

Skywarp shrugged.  
"We can not stay for long, unfortunately. We have a patrol in the morning and Megatron will surely not delay it. So give it two hours and we have to be gone."

"The little one…?"

Skywarp made a vague gesture. "How are you faring with that artificial milk?"

"He took the little he drank well" explained Ratchet, "but it was much less than he drinks real milk. As he proves right now again. I think he will make it with it, but he will grow slowly. Skywarp… um… could you give us some of your milk to analyse? We don't really know what he needs."

"Yes of course!" Skywarp immediately agreed.

Thundercracker rolled his optics at how compliant and naïve his lover was. But he did not interfere. Not even when Ratchet messed around with his feeding tube, extracting a milk sample from him, though he normally was furiously jealous about Skywarp.

His gaze just returned to the dark face of his former leader. And he felt that he would miss him.  
All the time he had always hidden behind the loud, screechy Starscream. Had felt safe with Megatron's wrath always aimed at Starscream. Had entrusted himself and with him Skywarp to Starscream's leadership. Because it was so much easier to just follow.  
Now he had to lead, Skywarp was normally always looking up at him to make the decisions.  
He hated it. He didn't want responsibility.  
And secretly he had to admit he had admired Starscream for taking it. Always. For the immense strength of him. The power to withstand the mightiest warrior in the universe. The defiance that would never be broken.  
Until now.  
His finger's traced the seams in Starscream's cheeks.  
_Finally you gave in_ he thought. _So strong you have always been. Now it was too much? Too much for even you to bear. I can understand you, Screamer. I can understand and accept. But still I would like you better back here with us._

* * *

There were no words. Just feelings. They were flooding him without him being able to do anything against it.  
Acceptance. Affection.  
Understanding. Care.

A part of me…

* * *

"It's not anywhere near it" Ratchet said. "Your milk is much richer in everything except the oily parts. The amount of that is alright. But all the metals, the polyurethanes, all that matter stuff… we reach a third of the percentage of what true milk can offer. It's really amazing what a mech's body can do"

A flattered smile crept across Skywarp's face.  
When he loved to be praised about something, it were his qualities as a parent.

"But I think it will keep the little one working. He will grow slowly probably. When after two years of being nursed a child normally reaches the tenth part of his final weight, he will most likely need six years for that. And only then slowly be able to digest other things. Just as the d.u. develops slower, too."

Skywarp nodded sadly and teased the baby while it drank.  
He felt the optics of the Autobots on him, felt the awe and respect they had for him for nourishing the baby.  
Perhaps he could really enjoy staying here…  
But it was so overwhelming a change! To suddenly live with the bots he had called his enemies for millennia!  
He exchanged a glance with Thundercracker.  
His lover shook his head slightly.  
Skywarp sighed.  
Not this time.

The time passed quickly.  
They tried another reboot while Skywarp was holding Starscream's hand, but it didn't help.

It was very hard for Skywarp to say goodbye to the little one when they had to leave.  
The baby cried when he understood that Skywarp, Thundercracker and Polarstorm would go away. But he made no move to want to follow them.  
There were many tears, also on Skywarp's and Storm's side.  
Skywarp even pressed a kiss to Starscream's helmet before he finally had to go.  
It amazed Jazz how deep the relationship between the Decepticons obviously went. They were not shallower than those of Autobots quite obviously.

He cuddled the little one while Prime and Prowl escorted the Decepticons out again.  
Perceptor excused himself and left to recharge, leaving Ratchet and Jazz with the little one.

"Hush, sweetspark, hush" murmured Jazz, "I will stay with you. See, 'Warp has to leave. He will have stress with Megatron otherwise. Don't blame him."

The little one sniffed and turned to his father, waving his little arms at him.  
Gently Jazz set him down on Starscream's chest.  
The baby huddled to his cockpit again and stroked it gently with a flat hand.  
Jazz sighed and looked at the monitor.  
There was still an energy curve there.  
Faint and even.  
He rubbed his brow.  
Primus help.  
Not caring what the others thought, he took Starscream's hand and stroked it.  
The little one nibbled at a ridge of the cockpit, awkwardly mimicking a kiss, then closed his optics and pressed his cheek against the glass.

* * *

… will die with you.

Little One…  
He was completely overwhelmed by another feeling.  
Love.  
Not that he was loved, but that he had love. Love he wanted to give.


	9. 9 - Unite

**WARNINGS:**

**Robot baby, but I tried to go at it in a more scientific way. I began to write this story 4 years ago without thinking I would ever publish it though and there are some things in it which might be a little "kitschy" , but the story is mainly for my enjoyment after all ;)**

**Other warnings: Suicidal thoughts, slash as in robots without real gender go at each other?  
**

**9 Unite**

A shrill beep sounded.  
Ratchet jumped to receive the transmission coming in.  
It was Red Alert and he called the medic to accompany a rescue troop – some Autobots had been attacked and damaged by Stunticons in the city.

Shortly Ratchet checked the machinery.  
"Jazz, just watch this running here. In the case something seems to be wrong, wake Wheeljack. Otherwise I can leave you alone here, can't I?"

Jazz nodded. "Of course."

"Alright, I have to be gone…" Ratchet transformed and drove out.

Jazz gazed after him.  
Finally alone.  
He turned to look at the sparkling.  
He was breathing calmly, fans humming lowly.  
It was amazing that he still clang to his father like that, obviously not capable of understanding what was going on. That he was nearly dead. What should they do when the spark energy finally faded?  
How could they explain to a little child like him that his father would never come back online?

Jazz sighed and sank down beside the table, leaning with his back against it and still stroking the cold, limp blue hand.  
When he imagined it... how would they handle it? So far no transformer had died on earth. On Cybertron normally corpses were molten down in a ceremony or taken apart to help others in need with spare parts. But what would they do here? Bury him?  
Jazz sobbed when he imagined how they dug a deep hole and let the dead seeker body down into it and covered it with earth.  
No, Starscream would sure not want that. He was a being of the free air. To end up buried in the earth he so despised was sure no option. Should they keep his body? Somehow it would make Jazz sad. When he imagined that he forever would know that Starscream's body lay in the cellar of the Ark, founding a cemetery that he wished would never be needed, it would make him vastly uncomfortable. Somehow he thought that it was probably best to bear when his body was destroyed. That beautiful lithe, powerful seekerbody... what a shame!  
He stroked the hand he still held. His spark felt terribly heavy and defeated.  
So they would take him apart? Melt the different parts down? He grew sick when he looked at the lifeless blue hand and imagined how it would be heated up and melted to a blob of metal.  
"No..." he whined and sobbed. He couldn't deal with it. Starscream was their enemy, a Decepticon, but still he didn't want his death.  
After millennia of fighting each other it was strange but they knew each other so well. The Decepticons and Autobots. And Starscream just belonged there, what would the transformer society be without him? It wasn't right!  
He tugged at the still hand. "Come on back, man! We need you here!"

Suddenly there was movement.  
That was new. Since movement meant that there had to be space dimensions.  
His speed grew, though he had no idea into what direction he was heading at all.  
It felt like falling, but was going up… or sideward? He didn't know. And he was falling quicker and quicker…  
Oh slag, with the speed he gained… what would the crash be like?

Jazz sat there for hours.  
Waiting.  
He knew what was happening. He finally grew acceptance. He knew that if the spark's energy curve finally smoothed out now, he would no longer be overly shocked.  
He knew that they would make it somehow.  
That he couldn't change it anymore. That he had tried everything. That everyone here had tried everything. And there was no more to do.

Sometimes there was nothing that could change the course.

With a deep sigh, Jazz let the acceptance settle.  
And without remorse, he pressed a kiss to the lifeless blue hand and let all the affection he had developed for the broken seeker flow into it.  
When he had to leave, he at least wanted him to know how much he cared.

He hung his head, pressing his cheek against Starscream's lower arm.  
How terrible must it be to leave this world thinking that nobody cared…  
Suddenly he noticed a strange sound.  
A low click.  
He gazed around to see where it might have come from, but it did not repeat. It was an alien sound, too, one he hadn't heard so far and couldn't pinpoint.  
Just when he had settled back against the table and had pressed Starscream's arm against his face again there was another sound.  
A faint hiss.  
Annoyed, he looked over at the machinery. How dare that thing disturb his musing?  
With a resigned sigh, Jazz fought to rise and walked up to the machine.  
He struggled to find out what was wrong.

The medbay ceiling.  
Great. That was the last he remembered and the first he saw.  
But there was something different.  
The tube from his mouth was gone, the energy soaring into him against his will, the tension, the struggle, overall the atmosphere of fight was gone.  
It was all still around, nobody seemed to be there at the moment.  
Weird.  
He blinked, trying to focus his optics.  
There was a familiar weight on his chest…  
It was warm, and fitted perfectly into the niche between his intake and cockpit.

A smile crept over his face when he made out the form of a tiny hand pressed against his cockpit.

"Slagging thing" muttered Jazz. By all means he couldn't make out what was wrong with the machine.  
Finally he listened closer.  
And slowly it registered that the sound didn't come from the machine.  
He was just about to track it when suddenly another new sound came up.  
A deep, irregular rumbling that within some seconds turned into a healthy sounding engine pair reving.

Jazz swivelled around and gazed in shock.  
Starscream's body was just heating up significantly, the warmth spreading from his chest through his chassis, gathering around twirling fans, shooting through pipelines and veins when the blood pump resumed work.  
And the optics were bright yellow in Jazz' heatcam… They were online.

Paralysed, Jazz watched how warmth developed in the arm that hung down on the side of the table when it worked its hydraulics and rose slowly.  
The fingers flexed and relaxed testingly. Then the hand settled on the sleeping sparkling to pat it lightly.

"Starscream!" Jazz croaked but found his vocal processor nearly out of order with excitement.  
He jumped up to the table and stared down at the seeker.  
The face was just warming up a little and Jazz could make out a sad grin on it.

"Seems I'm back where I left?" he heard Starscream's screechy voice, still weak, but unmistakable.

With a shrill laugh, Jazz collapsed beside the table, grabbing Starscream's hand.  
"You… you… Oh Primus…" He threw a gaze at the spark curve.  
It was strong and regular again.  
Jazz couldn't help it, he had to laugh with the glee that filled his spark.  
"Starscream! Starscream! You're back!"

"Obviously."

"Oh thank Primus! Thank you!"

Starscream made a face.  
"Calm down a little, will you? Why are you so out of your mind?"

"I'm out of my mind? Why? Because you were near dead? Your spark would not connect with your body for four days! It's been four days since you passed out! And we all thought after such a long time you couldn't make it…. Just even I was beginning to lose hope... and click, there you are…"

"Back and healthy. Hell yeah." Starscream looked down at himself. "My spark, yes? Lived for four days without a body." He nodded at his chest. "You treacherous thing."  
He tested his hydraulics by flexing his right arm.  
"And I'm free, as I realise. And you're all alone…." Starscream shot him a sharp glance.

Jazz laughed. "Yes, come on, jump up, overwhelm me, I don't mind as long as you leave me alive."

A frown crossed Starscream's face. "Did you lose your mind during my absence?"

"Uhm… no I don't think so. But I learned quite some things."

"Ada?"

"Huh?"

The child rose from its crouched position.  
"Ada?" It called, face mistrustful.

Starscream's spark ached. He had let him down…  
"I guess that's me, little one?" he said carefully. "Yeah, I'm back here!"

The small head tilted to one side, sharp optics focussing on him.  
It was as if he wanted to ask "Really?"

It drove tears to Starscream's optics. How disappointed and lost must the little one have felt when he purposefully killed himself, leaving him behind?  
"Yeah, really!" He whispered. "I'm back here for you."

Slowly an insecure smile crept into the child's features. "Ada?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

Finally the white optics lit up, and the baby laughed out in joy, believing him at last.

It went right into Starscream's spark to see him so merry about him returning.  
"Little One" he whispered, grabbed the child and pressed it to his chest.  
"My Little One…"  
An intense rush of feelings overwhelmed him. It was as if something that had been held back for too long suddenly tumbled all over him.  
Love for his little baby.  
And it was so good to give…  
He kissed the child's forehead, and the baby tried to embrace his face, laughing.

Jazz stumbled backwards, stunned.  
This was unbelievable. Was he dreaming?

"Wheeljack!" he screamed. "Wheels! Here, quickly!"

Only some seconds later he heard the engineer screeching around the corner and after a moment he came to halt beside him, gazing speechlessly.

"He's back!" Jazz said and in an urge of happiness flung himself at Wheeljack, hugging him.

"That's… man! Primus! Yeah!" the engineer called out, headfins flashing. "Starscream!" he shouted, laughing with joy. "You gave us a fine scare!"

The seeker smiled self-consciously.  
"Well…"  
It made him wonder to see both the Autobots beside themselves with happiness. What did they care at all for him? They must be indeed pretty stupid.

Wheeljack came up to him and carefully checked his vital signs.  
"May I take your status?" he asked. Starscream didn't care and just nodded.  
He knew his status was splendid. All his tanks were full, all batteries loaded, d.u. working off the energon that still stood in his pipeline.  
Gently Wheeljack plugged in the status checker and when he saw the values, nodded satisfied.  
"Great! Oh great! Jazz, where's Ratch?"

"Out, Stunticon battle in the city."

"Prime?"

"Too."

Wheeljack tried to call Prime up.

After a while the transmission was taken up and a wary sounding Prime answered.  
"Yes?"

"Prime? Is everything alright?"

"It's ok. We're just on our way back home. I have some parts of Sunstreaker and a Sideswipe without much of his paintjob left in my trailer. Ratchet has an equally battered Tracks." Prime sighed deeply.  
"I wish they would finally learn not to mess with the Stunticons."

Wheeljack smiled sadly.  
"I will prepare the medbay" he then said, deciding he would wait with the news until they were there personally.

"Yeah… thank you. Didn't want to ask. But I think Ratchet would like to have his treating table free."

"Yes, I can organise that I think" Wheeljack said, trying to not sound too excited. "Wheels out."

He grinned over at Starscream.  
"We are to clear that table there, care to help?"

He held out a hand for Starscream to grab.

Feeling strangely content, Starscream just took it and pulled himself up.  
When he was sitting, Wheeljack took the last tubes and sensors off of him.

With a short beep the monitored spark curve faded out when the sensors were removed.

Starscream finally rose fully, child in his arms.  
The Autobots smiled stupidly at him.

Wheeljack offered him a chair and he sat down there.

He looked down at his baby. "He must be hungry" he said.

"Probably" Jazz said. "But just six hours ago Skywarp and Thundercracker were here to see you and him and Skywarp nursed him. But before, he was pretty low on everything we guess. We had quite a struggle to nourish him."

"Awww, I'm sorry Little One!" Starscream said and pulled the feeding tube out. "Not much there yet" he explained, "But I feel my d.u. doing its best to come up with the finest milk for you"

And to Jazz' utter amazement, he didn't hear even the faintest streak of irony in his voice.

* * *

Ratchet rushed to the medbay with Tracks on his stretcher. Optimus Prime was right on his heels, carrying the injured twins.

When the medic dashed into the medbay he was surprised to find the treating table empty.  
For a moment shock gripped his spark.  
So Starscream had finally let go while he was out…  
But then routine took over. It was more important to care for the injured Autobots now.  
Wheeljack and Perceptor were standing ready and immediately took Tracks off the stretcher and onto the table.

While they did the basic preparations for the operation, Ratchet rushed to help Sideswipe out of Prime's trailer and then carefully pulled the stretcher with Sunstreaker's remains out.

The yellow lambo was in stasis lock, having been ripped into several pieces, but his main chassis was halfway intact, keeping him alive.

As macabre as it looked, he set Sunstreaker aside and rushed to Tracks first, for the sports car was gravely low on blood, leaking from several huge wounds. His prime engine had been smashed in, his d.u. was tiny pieces and ripped filters and several tanks of coolant and other necessary fluids were burst.  
"This will be a long day" Ratchet sighed.

To his slight indignation, Wheeljack seemingly not even now lost his good mood.  
"Perhaps I can give you a boost of motivation" the engineer said, grabbed Ratchet and pulled him away.

"Wheels, stop that! I'm needed there!" the medic protested.

"Yeah, I know, you will be back in a klik, after you have seen this" he shoved Ratchet across the corridor, making him look into one of the sickrooms of the medbay.

"Wheeljack, quit this…" Ratchet stopped dead in midsentence, his gaze meeting Starscream sitting on the berth, nursing his baby and grinning up at him.

"Primus!" the medic said. Then he was pulled back by Wheeljack and hurried back to the treating table.  
"When… how?"

"On his own just from the middle of nowhere" Wheeljack said, smiling. "Now get to work, old buddy, we can not leave Tracks in this unacceptable state any more klik."  
For only a short moment a relieved smile slid across the medic's stressed face.

Prime was still hovering at the door and tried to find a moment to catch Wheeljack.  
"Where is Starscream?" He whispered, not wanting to disturb the bustling activity in the medbay.

Wheeljack pointed at the back of the bay.  
"Around the corner, first door to the right" he said and Prime was a little surprised that he sounded so merry.

Quickly he rushed around the medbay's operation theatre, careful to not get in the way somewhere, and went around the corner.  
He heard voices.  
Jazz' beautiful, melodic voice.  
And another voice, chuckling. It was much higher, and a bit screechy…  
Disbelieving, Prime gazed into the room. There was Starscream. All healthy and active.  
The seeker sneered at him.  
"Hey, Optimus!"

The Autobot leader stepped into the room, optics ablaze with happiness.  
"Starscream! I'm glad you're back!"

For a moment the seeker looked him up and down disbelievingly.  
"You know… the weirdest thing about that remark is that it seems to be meant seriously."

Prime chuckled. "It is."

"Uhm…. If I may ask… why?"

"I'm an Autobot! Even the Autobot leader!" Prime said, as if that was a reason.

"So… it's just because it's expected of you?" Starscream asked, grinning about the slip.

"No! Starscream, you should know me better than that. I don't want any of the few still existing transformers dead. Well… except for Megatron, perhaps. I am really happy that you decided to return."

"In fact I think I had no choice. My spark just threw itself back into my body. There was hardly anything I was able to do."

Prime tilted his head. But decided to not say anything about that right now. It was too dangerous that he broke the fragile hope and acceptance he felt in Starscream.  
"How are you feeling?" he asked instead.

"Surprisingly good" Starscream answered honestly. "I'm quite alright."

"Good. Where do you want to live? I mean, would you be ok with the Ambassador's for now?"

Starscream nodded. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Really?"

The seeker huffed. "Yeah! Really!"

"Alright! Uhm… I …" Prime vaguely pointed at Starscream. "When Prowl sees that, he will have a short circuit. We can not use that now, with Ratchet so occupied. Would it be ok for you to suffer some… security measures?"

"The chains" Starscream said dryly. "No. I don't mind. But let him put them on."

Making a surprised face, Prime asked. "Why him?"

But Starscream only smiled wryly.

Prime shrugged and called Prowl over radio.  
"Prowl… I would like you here in the medbay. In the sickroom, come from the northwest entrance, please, Ratchet is more than occupied. Yes. Until soon."

Optimus stepped out of the room to catch Prowl in the corridor.  
After a while they heard Prowl marching up to him.  
"How's the situation?" asked the tactician.

"I think it's pretty bad with Tracks. Sunstreaker looks worse than he is Ratchet said. I don't know, I don't want to disturb the medics now. Better wait until the worst is over."

"Alright. So what is it you want?"

They saw from his shadow how Optimus Prime gestured for the door.  
"Security measures" he only said.

After a short pause they heard Prowl move again and soon his taught, impressive frame stood in the doorway.  
For a moment he said nothing. Then he just slowly shook his head.

"Shall I bind him?" he asked Prime, not having one word for the seeker.

"Yes. But use a light binding."

Prowl nodded and pulled a chain from one of his cargo containers.  
Starscream rose and tried to look into Prowl's optics, but the tactician never met his gaze.  
Absolutely willing, Starscream let him bind him. If Jazz was not utterly mistaken, he stroke some sensual poses during that, teasing Prowl. Heedless of that, the tactician cuffed the chain to his right hand and attached it to his knee with a length that would keep him from running and transforming but was not hindering him too much in daily movements.  
He left a leash coming from the knee to be able to tackle him to something and at the moment hooked it into a peg in his chassis.

Nodding at Prime, he indicated that he was ready.

"He's to be brought back to the Ambassador's" explained Prime. "I think you can go there now, if you like, Starscream? How is your status?"

"Near to perfect" explained the seeker and put the feeding tube back into its housing, ready to go.

"Good. I have to take care for some other things now, please excuse me" Prime nodded a good-bye and strode away.

Starscream rose from the berth.  
The child in his arm slumbered, but now and then onlined his optics to see if his father was still there.

Every time he did that, Starscream smiled reassuringly down at him.

"I… would like a shower" the seeker explained.

Jazz immediately jumped up. "Of course. Follow me. I think we can use the medbay's washing rack. Then there is no danger that somebody runs into us."

Jazz led them around in the medbay and to its spacious washing rack.  
"Shall I take the little one?" he offered.

Starscream nodded and gently bedded the baby on Jazz' hood.  
Immediately the white optics flashed online.  
"It's ok" Starscream said, "Stay with Jazz. I'm only taking a shower, right there, ok?"

The child's gaze followed him when he walked into the shower area.

Since Prowl would have had to perforce follow him because of the chain, he decided to loosen the hook and let the chain go, instead pulling his weapon, holding it ready for the case Starscream would do something.  
He quite heard Jazz sigh about it, but he didn't care. Security came first. Especially with his poor emotional ability making him practically unable to assess an emotional mech's behaviour.

Starscream activated the tap and fresh water splashed down on him in a pleasant spray.  
A deep sigh shook his central cooling pipe.  
This was immensely good.

He somehow still felt a little stiff, as if covered in something that would hinder his movement.  
His sensors were off, making him unable to really feel himself. And the water running over his surfaces made him aware of them, taught him where his armour was, how his forms were. Every drop hitting plating sent a signal into his unconscious flash memory, renewing his self-awareness.

He felt strangely floating and numb, as if his body was not yet really connected with him. It felt as if his mind was working much quicker than his body and always when it had given an order it would only be followed delayed by his body, leaving the mind more time to think.

Trying to put that to a good use, he thought back, tried to remember what had happened in the last days. But he could by all means not bring it to his consciousness. Sometimes he had a whiff of a flashback, a sudden shudder going through his systems with the memory of soaring energy and heat going through it.  
And now and then strange feelings emanated from his spark. They were very faint, but in his current overly-aware status he was able to catch them.  
Curious, he tried to describe them and put them to a file.  
Affection.

The water ran over his face, tracing its outlines.

Acceptance. He gathered the water in his hands and watched how it ran through his fingers.

His inner parts longed to be cleaned and he decided to take the armour off.  
First the right, then the left part of his chest plating, baring his upper body.

Care. The water ran into his mechanics, dripping from joints and cables, hitting hot surfaces, evaporating, causing steam to rise from his chest.

Understanding. Cool drops hit his sparkchamber, his spark bobbed and twirled with delight. Delight to be alive.

Water ran along inner struts, ran along tubes, calming the dull pain in his milk tube and chambers.  
A part of you.  
Immediately Starscream's gaze sought his child. The emotion that had swept over his spark felt as if the little one had spoken to him.

Bright white optics looked at him, a little concerned as it seemed.  
Starscream smiled reassuringly, and immediately the little face lit up.  
It made Starscream's spark clench.  
How could he ever consider leaving the little one alone?

Confused about himself, he shook his head and resumed cleaning himself.  
"Detergent?" he asked.

Jazz pointed at a shelf. "Serve yourself."

Finding a brush and detergent there, Starscream began to thoroughly scrub himself .  
He didn't dare to take his hip armour off to clean his stained and sticky interface device. But the water ran into the armour and rinsed the dried blood away at least from its inside.  
Starscream took his time, relishing in the sensations the warm shower gave him.  
Nobody urged him on.  
The Autobots just waited. Jazz fondling the baby, Prowl just staring blankly into his direction.  
Starscream felt the strange urge to tease him, and when he put his armour back on he stroke some sexual poses.  
He had no idea what was driving him, why he practically asked to be raped again. But just for the moment he didn't care. He believed that Prowl's self-control would take much more than this until it broke.  
And meanwhile it was fun to just try to vex him somehow.

When he was done he picked his baby back up, bedding it in his bent arm.  
It made Jazz smile brightly to see that.  
The second in command of the Autobots jumped up.  
"Just give me a moment. I wanna see how the injured are faring." Jazz rushed out while Prowl hooked the chain back onto himself and gave Starscream a wave to go first.

The seeker complied and Prowl steered him through the deserted corridors of the Ark.

Soon they heard someone following them and Jazz took up to them.  
Prowl gave him a questioning look, but Jazz could only make a vague gesture that he couldn't evaluate the situation, not looking too happy. Then he overtook them and scouted the corridors before they entered them.  
That way they reached the Ambassador's quarters without meeting anybody.

Prowl opened the door and they stepped in.  
"Seems like we will have to set up a watch again" Prowl sighed while he chained Starscream to the wall at the berth. "I will take the rest of the night" Jazz said, but Prowl shook his head.

"Never. You haven't had real recharge for four days. It may well be you just fall asleep. I will take the next six hours, and then I will see if anybody can take the next watch."

"Then I go to sleep and take that" Jazz suggested.

Prowl nodded, his face dark. Why in the pit was Jazz so eager on watching Starscream?  
"Alright, if you insist."

Jazz flashed a grin at Starscream. The seeker had just reached out for the bottles with sustenance still standing on the table and drank one containing dissolved metals in one go.  
"Ok, I'll see you in the morning then!" Jazz said and was happy to receive a little smile from Starscream.

Content, he left and strode off to his quarters. He had to admit – he was damn tired.

Prowl slumped into the chair at the desk and logged into Teletraan.

Since he obviously had no interest in entertaining Starscream, the seeker began playing with the child.  
He found it was easier for him now. While in the past he had always felt stupid and awkward when trying it, it came easily to him now.  
It was a totally processorless task. He just held out a finger, the little one would grab it, he would pull it away and hold it somewhere else.  
Chasing, as Wheeljack had realised, was obviously the little one's favourite game.  
When he got bored with holding his finger in the child's reach, he put it on the berth beside him and tried to lure him into standing up. But the baby only sat on his aft and began to whine unhappily when he couldn't reach the finger that was held out too high.  
"Now, come on, just rise!" Starscream encouraged him and grabbed him with the other hand, standing him on his feet. But as soon as he let go, the little one sank back down to his aft.  
"Too early, uh?"

He stroked the dark cheek, comforting, and then held his fingers low enough over the berth that he could reach it, but would need to crawl a bit. That was not so much the problem, the baby immediately set down his hands and crawled up, following his finger when he twirled it in circles around him.  
"That's somehow disillusioning" Starscream said into the silence.

Prowl even had the kindness to turn his optics at him.

"That this is obviously the very basic instinct of a flier. To just chase after things. Do earthbound sparklings do that, too?"

The tactician helplessly shrugged. "How should I know?"

"Thought you might perhaps know one. From Cybertron or so."

"Not close."

Starscream sniggered. He could quite imagine that. An image came to his mind of a toddler chasing after Prowl, and the stiff tactician fearfully backing away, not being able to handle a so illogical thing as a baby.

"What's his name?" the tactician asked surprisingly, seemingly having at least a little bit of interest in the child.

Starscream smiled, observing the baby.  
"Little One" he decided. He had got so used to him being the little one that he would not give it up anymore.

"That will become quite ironic one day" Prowl stated.

"Indeed" chuckled Starscream. Then he rolled his optics when the child grew tired of chasing his finger and came for his intakes instead, patting the armour.  
"And when I imagine that he takes a good portion of his soon-to-be-size from my very own body, it slightly gives me the creeps" he said, opened the hatch, sat with his legs crossed and held the feeding tube ready for his baby.  
The Little One tenderly enclosed valve and began suckling.  
It made Starscream smile instinctively. Somehow it felt good. He got a slight sensory feedback from the valve and the release of pressure from the tube was pleasant.  
His body was ready to give. He produced milk no matter what. And it was meant for the baby.  
A part of me indeed Starscream thought. It was fascinating. Atoms that had been his' were turned into milk and built into the growing body of the child.  
Suddenly he could understand Skywarp loving to nurse his baby so much.  
The bond it made them share was probably the strongest that could ever be built.

When the baby was sated it quickly grew slumberous and Starscream rocked it gently until he fell into recharge, one hand curled around the edge of his chest intake.

In peace with himself, Starscream looked down at his baby and thought.  
His strange numb and overly-aware status was slowly fading, and he was finding back to himself.  
But he realised he had changed. He quite remembered the facts about the recent past. That he had been desperate, that he had not been able to take in sustenance, that he had starved himself down to deactivation. Even started his turbine when he was low on energy, knowing that it would be enough to lead to a deep discharge.  
He knew that all. But he could by the life of him not remember why he had done all this.  
It made him feel a little uncomfortable, knowing that he was in Autobot hands, bound and imprisoned. But it did not make him freak out with desperation anymore. Neutrally estimated, he found it was not so bad after all. He was safe from Megatron, he was provided with food and a place to live where nobody would harm him, thanks to the code of honour of the stupid bots.  
It would be awfully boring, that was his main fear at the moment.  
But he was now determined to make the best of it. Tomorrow, hopefully, things would change.

For now he decided to try find recharge, though his new batteries were in a good state. Just to kill the time while his overly entertaining guard was on shift.  
He lay down and bedded the child on his chest.  
"Prowl?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"Can you look out that I don't, like, crush the baby in my sleep? Skywarp always sleeps with his baby in his berth, but I have seldom done that before and feel a little insecure with it."

The tactician nodded, looking slightly embarrassed.

But Starscream didn't care. Turning his face to the wall, he offlined his optics, while his fingers where gently fondling the wings of his little baby.

* * *

When Jazz woke early but rested in the morning, the first thing he did was checking the news of the Ark.  
There was a short statement of Wheeljack that Tracks would pull through and Sunstreaker was still in stasis, but would most probably also make it.  
Relieved, Jazz ran for the recreation hall and fetched some energon cubes.  
Some bots were already there, since the first patrol shift would soon begin, and Slingshot called out for him.  
"Hey Jazz! Join us here!" The flier waved him over to the table where he was sitting with Mirage, Smokescreen and Cliffjumper.

Jazz shook his head. "No time, sorry."

"What's up, Jazz?" asked Cliffjumper, not willing to let him go so easily. "You practically disappeared from all social life here for nearly a week now. Is it something with our prisoner?"

"I have shift guarding him, yes" affirmed Jazz.

"But I don't understand" said Smokescreen, "Why are we not called to watch him anymore? I mean, since he went up to the Ambassadors, it's only you, Prowl and Wheeljack and sometimes Ratchet guarding him as far as I know. There is some secret going on there, I smell it! What's it? The twins said Starscream was dead. Is that not so?"

"No! No that's not the case" said Jazz, growing a little impatient. Damn gossip factory! He felt that he could not deny that Starscream had been in the medbay, since the twins had seen it and Smokescreen had even witnessed them bringing the collapsed seeker there.  
"He had a temporary energy problem" he claimed, not having any idea how he should explain that. "I have to go now."

He saw that his fellow Autobots were mad that he would not tell them more, but turned and left anyway.

Slingshot shook his head. "I don't like it that there are secrets within the Ark. Are we not trustworthy or what?"

"Yeah!" Smokescreen joined him in his rant. "I don't see the point either. Why can we not know what's going on? It might be dangerous! I mean, if that little thing Jazz was holding is some kind of drone that could do things to a mech… perhaps it was sent by Megatron to finally finish his second in command off, far away from his fellow Decepticons."

A hot debate broke loose in the recreation hall, spreading the wildest rumours about what was going on with Starscream.

Jazz called out for Prowl to announce his coming and opened the door silently.  
It was seven o'clock in the morning and he found Starscream sleeping peacefully, curled around his baby.

He could only smile at the sweet picture. Sitting down in the second chair in the room beside Prowl, he gave him an energon cube. The tactician nodded in thanks and drank it.  
"How did he do?" asked Jazz, whispering.

"Well I guess" Prowl said. "Nursed the child, then bid me to watch over it that he doesn't harm it in his sleep. But he never did, he seemed to be quite aware of the baby even when he was deeply in recharge."

"Good. Very good. I can take the next shift now!" Jazz suggested and had to stand a very questioning glance from the tactician.  
He held it easily.

"Are you fully recharged?"

"Yes."

"Why?" mouthed Prowl, not understanding what was driving Jazz.

But the second in command just shook his head slightly with that annoying "You wouldn't understand" expression written on his face.

Resigned, Prowl ended his last report and left.

When he reached the recreation hall, he found an uproar of a discussion there. And as soon as he had heard "Starscream" and "Secret" – he turned on his wheel and made for his room instead of a nice cube of energon in the hall.

* * *

Prime's first visit he paid that day was at the medbay.  
He had read the memo that things were no too bad with the injured, but he wanted to see them – and the probably total over-worked medics.

Indeed he found Wheeljack and Ratchet bowed over the operation table and had no doubt that they had been standing like this for the last eight hours.

It was Sunstreaker they were working on now. Track was lying on the intensive care berth in sight, connected to monitors and having tubes sticking in several inlets.  
He seemed to be in recharge.  
At the head of the operation table sat or more lay Sideswipe, his upper body resting on the berth beside his brother's head, one hand lying on the fair but still face.  
Also he seemed to be in recharge.

"Wheeljack, Ratchet" Prime announced himself softly.

The CMO looked up, optics dim with exhaustion.  
"Prime."

"How are they?"

"Tracks will be ok, but it will take a while until all the small injuries have healed we can not repair. And that his d.u. isn't working does not exactly help with healing. Perceptor is working on some spare parts, they soon will be ready for replacement. When that's done he will quickly be fine again."

Ratchet grabbed an energon cube and gulped it down, then turned his attention back to the connections he was working on in Sunstreaker's right shoulder.

It made Prime shudder to see that the right leg and arm of the yellow lambo were just lying on the table at the right places but were not connected to his body.  
So far he had no really detailed knowledge of what had happened between the twins, Tracks and the Stunticons, but as far as he knew Motormaster had grabbed Sunstreaker's feet and Wildrider and Drag Strip had pulled at his arms until the joints had given in. It had left Sunstreaker with only one leg dangling from his hip and the other limbs off, sending him into stasis with the sudden loss of vital fluids.

Prime gently patted Sideswipe's back and the red lambo wearily raised his head.  
Shooting a weak smile at their leader, he acknowledged his support, then let his head sink back down beside Sunstreaker's and stroked his twin's cheek tenderly.

Prime wished he had something encouraging to say for Ratchet, or some solution for the problem that he was working non-stop for hours and would have to continue a good while longer. But there was nothing. All medical trained bots were in the same situation, there was no chance to exchange him.

Finally he said what his spark told him.  
"I'm so happy to have you, Ratchet, Wheeljack."

The engineer flashed a happy smile at him, but the cmo only gave an ironic snort.

Sighing, Prime retreated, feeling that he could be of no help here.

When he walked through the corridors towards the Ambassador's, a transmission from Prowl came in, asking him to give him a klik. He agreed and waited for the tactician to search him out. They walked together slowly.  
"Prime, I am concerned about Jazz' neutrality." Prowl came straight to the point.

"Uh?"

"He is eager on watching Starscream. My logic processors can not come up with any explanation for that, that's why I need you to judge that for me."

Prime smiled behind his mask.

"I think that Jazz just feels compassion for a tortured mech."

"But… he's a Decepticon!"

"Does that mean he feels no pain?" Prime asked, a bit astonished that it obviously was a logical conclusion for Prowl that no Decepticon deserved compassion.

"Well… yes he does. But it's his own fault. In a way. He chose to be a Decepticon, he constantly tries to overthrow Megatron – is it a surprise that the brutal leader of the Decepticons punishes him? And again and again he's asking for it. I don't see why someone would pity him."

"Pity is not about logic, Prowl. And Jazz is not about logic. You know that better than I do. But to calm you down: I'm sure that Jazz' choice to feel compassion for him won't cause us harm."

"I see a good potential of harm in that. Jazz is lax with Starscream, allowing him things that might end up dangerous for him and us all. He thinks he knows what's on Starscream's mind, but does he? What for are they called Decepticons? You always have to expect the worst of them, and especially from Starscream. I'm afraid that he is luring Jazz in, being quite aware of the soft spots on him, and then will strike when Jazz is all loose on him."

"I don't. Trust me, Prowl. We're going to be fine."

The tactician sighed, defeated. He would never grasp the weird ways in which other mechs thought.


End file.
